About the Psychboard Project
The Psychboard began with a podcast episode. In “Psychedelics, Psychosis, and Risk Reduction (opens in a new tab),” an episode of Back from the Abyss (Heacock, 2022), Dr. Craig Heacock, a psychiatrist, describes the mind as a soundboard: a mixing console of channels that can each be turned up or down, rather than switches that are simply on or off. I loved the metaphor for its creativity. Even as an experienced clinician, I noticed it changing the way I understood psychosis.
That shift left me with a question: how do we help future clinicians keep the whole person in view when someone’s experience may include psychosis? A person’s story is shaped by so much more than symptoms: context, culture, mood, substance use, relationships, and life history. Yet training often teaches these pieces one at a time. Psychboard is my hope that students entering the helping professions can come to see psychosis differently too.
Psychboard invites students into a recording studio. At a mixing console, learners slide faders across symptom and life-context channels and notice how the whole picture shifts as they go. The metaphor carries the lesson: no single channel tells the whole story, and small adjustments change how everything sounds together. Along the way, students work through written practice cases, compare their thinking with the range of judgments experienced clinicians made, and watch artwork and a music track take shape as they learn.
Psychboard is a teaching tool, not a clinical or diagnostic instrument. It offers a safe, interactive space to practice curiosity, slow down, and reflect before students ever sit with a client, so that when they do, they are ready to meet a person rather than a list of symptoms.
The project grew from my love of creative teaching and my commitment to preparing clinicians who offer holistic, humane, and rigorous care. It is supported by a Junior Faculty Development Grant funded by IBM and the Office of the Provost at UNC-Chapel Hill, and design technologist Juan Sanchez.
About Alyssa Draffin, LCSW
Alyssa Draffin, LCSW, is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Social Work, where she teaches clinical and counseling courses and supports students as they grow into confident, compassionate practitioners. A Certified NASW Clinical Supervisor, she brings clinical experience in trauma, infectious disease, and psychedelic-assisted therapy to the classroom. Her first clinical role after graduate school was working with people living with schizophrenia in Washington, D.C. She is also a U-PEP Faculty Fellow and Community Advisor.
In her teaching, Alyssa encourages students to approach mental health with curiosity and care, paying attention to context, culture, and the whole person rather than isolated symptoms. She loves finding creative ways to make clinical thinking experiential and interactive, and Psychboard grew directly from that work.
About Juan Sanchez
Juan Sanchez is the design technologist who helped bring Psychboard to life. He has spent more than 20 years in design and technology, at companies including Amazon and Microsoft as well as his own startups. He is passionate about turning big ideas into reality, especially in education, and about helping people see what’s possible with technology.