King's College London

Anxiety and depression are among the top ten causes of years lost to disability worldwide, representing a trillion dollar loss to the global economy every year. Over half a million people suffer from anxiety and depression each year, and rates are increasing. More accessible, effective interventions that target the key mechanisms that maintain anxiety and depression are urgently needed.

LENS (Learning Effective New Strategies) is a digital therapy proven to reduce anxiety and depression, and increase resilience. It does so by retraining the brain and transforming thinking habits. This allows people to naturally react differently to stress. They do not have to make an effort to apply a particular strategy or methodology, they just learn to process uncertainty more positively, breaking the vicious cycle that fuels anxiety and depression.

Accessible through an online platform without the need for interaction with a doctor or therapist, LENS is highly scalable, and it provides a valuable alternative to people who are not motivated to undertake talking therapies.

This project will explore models for LENS rollout in commercial, public, social enterprise and charitable sectors, including delivering a corporate pilot to employees of an organ transplant company and designing a pilot for NHS staff.

The business models developed for LENS will ensure a focus on ‘delivering social good’ to support some of the estimated 1.4 million people in the UK who have anxiety or depression, increasing their resilience and empowering them to improve their life outcomes.

“It is extremely exciting to have an opportunity to scale our innovation, LENS, and its potential to make mental health interventions more accessible, increasing patient choice and improving life outcomes.” - Colette Hirsch, Professor in Cognitive Clinical Psychology at King's and Honorary Consultant Clinical Psychologist at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. 

Partners and Collaborators

A network of multidisciplinary partners from across and beyond King's are working together to maximise the impact of the project. 

Find out more about the project partners:

• 3B Impact
• Muuvment, a corporate services company
• MQ Mental Health Research
• An organ transplant services company seeking to build mental health resilience in its workforce

Key stakeholders also include: 

• King's Centre for Innovative Therapeutics
• King's Department of Psychology 
• King's Entrepreneurship Institute 
• King's Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience
• King's Policy Institute 
• Selected NHS Trusts
• NHS workers and charities that support their development and wellbeing

Developing LENS

LENS is is a theory-driven, evidenced-based, accessible digital therapy designed to address clinical anxiety and/or depression effectively. Research shows that LENS not only reduces symptoms but also sustains long-term improvements, benefiting individuals with these conditions or at high risk of developing them. It stands out as the first interpretation training method to achieve better outcomes than control conditions in alleviating anxiety and depression, with its focus on targeting interpretation bias driving these superior results.

With funding from an NIHR Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation grant, LENS has been adapted for pregnant women experiencing high levels of worry or rumination, which heighten their risk of anxiety. LENS was tested as a preventive treatment during and after pregnancy through the RELAX (REducing Levels of AnXiety) study, which was launched in February 2022. The study has already demonstrated that women who worry a lot benefited from a single session of training by changing thinking habits and reducing worry in the short-term. Ongoing research is exploring whether web-based training can effectively reduce worry and anxiety in pregnant women and new mothers over the long term.

In February 2024, an evaluation by Pro Bono Economics, funded by MQ Mental Health, assessed the potential impact of making LENS available to the general population of approximately 1.4 million individuals with anxiety disorders. The findings revealed significant potential improvements in quality of life, translating into an estimated £2.9 billion in economic benefits.

The research outlined above, including the support from the NIHR Maudsley BRC, and Pro Bono Economics and MQ Mental Health's economic evaluation of LENS' impact, has been fundamental in securing the One King's Impact investment to scale LENS.