A service design concept utilizing the everyday work commute as an opportunity for therapy, embracing the car as a platform for tranquility and reflection.
Transit Therapy was an exploration of service design inside the space of daily driving commutes. Our research started by exploring rituals around the car, and values we could extract from them. The phenomena of a half-hypnotic state, when the driver is lost in the thoughts of daydreaming seemed to be the most intriguing to us. There is an existing space of people reflecting, relaxing, zoning out, day dreaming, journaling, writing, reading, listening to music –you’re watching the world pass by, even though you’re the one actually moving. We wondered, with the rise of technology in cars, do we need to protect this space? How? Or how could we enhance this experience to help more people use this time to reflect?
We were looking for a system that would either promote or utilize this relaxed state of mind in the car. We were curious if this setting could provide a wellness service. In our final phase, we concepted and designed a therapy service branded as “inMotion” which centered around the car using a new type of therapy we envisioned and named “Transit Therapy.”
During the course of the research, we interviewed therapists and psychologists, and conducted our own mock-sessions for the therapy service. We were fascinated at how closely the ideal space for therapy and the normal space of a car matched, and how therapists could imagine utilizing a space like this:
“Like in therapy, the car can move in all different directions and you can go wherever you want, you don’t know where you end…You have this feeling of ‘freedom’, the feeling that you can go anywhere in the car. You can scream in a car, you can say whatever you want and no one will hear it.” -Maja, Therapist
“The subconscious starts to work because the conscious is distracted, freeing the mind to talk freely.” -Maja,
“The car is already a room -there are no distractions, you are intimate, experiencing the same things together.” -Steven, Therapist
“Surroundings make you change your thoughts without the therapist saying anything.” -Maja
We explored the details of what a service like this could look like:
- how would the client/therapist handle booking a session?
- would the session take place inside the therapist’s car or the client’s car?
- who would be driving?
- how would the therapist and client find each other?
- how would this service handle varying commute times?
- what would happen after a session was completed?
- what limitations does having a session in the car add?
- what opportunities does having a session in the car add?
Collaborators: Antoni Kaniowski, Malthe Borch
