Damon Pourtahmaseb-Sasi

Subsidized therapy/coaching/mediation for those working on the future of humanity.

We are aware of a significant number of people (including many full-time employees) within the EA and longtermist communities who struggle with depression, anxiety, and other mental health problems. I think it makes sense to provide members of those communities with therapy and coaching sessions, which seem to be relatively effective at helping with those problems (the exact effect sizes are a highly disputed question, but it seems to me that on net, therapy and coaching seem to help a good amount). I also think that a major benefit is that some EAs are unwilling to see therapists who they expect to not understand their values or beliefs; they may be more willing to pursue therapy, and make more progress, with someone familiar with those values and beliefs.

Damon is a licensed therapist who has been offering services to people working in high-impact areas for the past year, and this grant is to allow him to spend a larger fraction of his time over the next year helping people working on high-impact projects, as well as to relocate to California to be able to offer his services to a larger number of people (he is currently located in Florida, where none of his current clients are located).

We’ve received a very large number of overwhelmingly positive testimonials that were sent to us from his current clients via an independent channel (i.e. Damon did not filter those testimonials for positive ones). This was one of the key pieces of evidence that led me to recommend this grant.