Puchku, for therapists and counselors

What Puchku does, what it doesn't, and what someone might bring to a session.

What Puchku is, and isn't

Puchku is

A mood journal for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch, kept company by a drawn tuxedo kitten in a room
A place to tap how a day feels, let a thought out, breathe slowly, keep a journal and look back on the day, week, month and year
Private: what someone writes stays on their own devices and syncs between them end-to-end encrypted, with a key only those devices have. Nobody else can read it, including us
Free, with no account needed and no ads

Puchku isn't

Therapy, a treatment, or a medical or crisis service
A chatbot. Puchku never replies to what someone writes
Something you can log into or watch. There's no therapist account, portal or live view
A streak, a score or a game. There are no mood scores or questionnaires, and Puchku never labels anyone

What it gives your clients, and you

For your clients

A private place between sessions to say how each day felt, in one tap, and what it was about if they like
A journal, a voice note or a typed vent they can keep or let go, and slow breathing with a kitten that never talks back or keeps count
Plain reviews of their day, week, month and year, made from their own check-ins
They decide exactly what to share with you. In session prep they pick what goes into a PDF, and which entries, if any, then send it themselves

For you

A PDF your client chose to bring: their moods and their review, what lifted them, the entries they starred or picked, and one thing they want to bring up
A starting point in their own words, so the hour doesn't begin with trying to remember the week
Nothing to set up: no sign-up, no portal, no fee. It's free for you too
Secure: the PDF is made on their device and sent by them. Their journal is protected by their device's Secure Enclave, and we never see any of it

The techniques, by name

Each card names the technique, what Puchku does, and how strong the evidence is for the habit itself. Strength: Moderate means one good meta-analysis or several trials with caveats; Weak means small or single studies. Numbered links go to the sources.

Expressive writing, one way

Let it out: typed or a voice note, private, no audience, no reply. Puchku never prompts for trauma writing.

Evidence: Weak to small

The average effect is very small (r ≈ .075), larger over several sessions on specific topics (Frattaroli 2006),¹ and distress often rises briefly right after writing (Baikie & Wilhelm 2005).²
Letting a thought go, by hand

After letting something out, the person can let it go: the words crumple into a paper ball, the kitten bats it away, and the text is discarded, never saved.

Evidence: Weak

Students who dragged a file of their negative thoughts to the recycle bin relied on them less, while imagining the drag did nothing (Briñol et al. 2013);³ binning written angry thoughts returned anger to baseline (Kanaya & Kawai 2024).⁴ There's no preregistered replication, and the outcomes were momentary.
Slow breathing

The kitten walks over hills: up a hill, breathe in; down the other side, a longer breath out. The pace is drawn as hills, never as numbers, with no holds, and Done ends it at once.

Evidence: Moderate

Breathwork reduced self-reported stress (g = −0.35) in non-clinical samples, though not in clinical ones (Fincham et al. 2023),⁵ and slow breathing at about six breaths a minute raises heart-rate variability (You et al. 2021).⁶
Reaching out

Friends see each other's weather, can send a heart or ask for a check-in, and Get help is always one tap away.

Evidence: Weak (qualitative evidence)

Heavier use of an AI chatbot went with more loneliness in a four-week trial (Fang et al. 2025),⁷ which is why Puchku points to people instead of talking back.

The evidence, and its limits

No study has tested any of this delivered by a cartoon pet. Every Puchku-specific benefit is an inference from the habits themselves. Expect small effects, if any.
Apps in this space show small average effects in trials, smaller still against active comparisons (Linardon et al. 2024).⁸ In a 2026 megastudy of eleven brief digital sessions, almost all helped right away, but only two still helped four weeks later; those gave focused, actionable guidance (Nature Human Behaviour 2026).⁹
The research is clearer about harm than benefit. Streaks, a pet that suffers when ignored, guilt at goodbye, reassurance on demand, AI replies and mood scores all have evidence against them. Puchku has none of them.
If you think we've got something wrong, we'd like to hear it.

The closer look

On devices with Apple Intelligence, Apple's on-device model can read a period's check-ins and, while the journal is open, the person's own words, and Puchku draws what it found: how the period moved, its rhythm, and a few questions to look inward.
Every line points to the check-ins or entries it came from and is checked before it shows. It never gives advice or labels anyone, and it runs on the device, not in the cloud.
It goes into a PDF only if the person adds it, in gray, and their own words only if they choose to include them.

Safety

Help is one tap or click away: Get help in Me shows helplines near the person, a list of helplines in many countries, and “Puchku isn't a crisis or medical service.”
Every text box runs an on-device check for suicide and self-harm language before anything is kept or let go. If it finds any, crisis help opens and nothing is kept, and nothing about it is stored or sent.
Breathing is slow and gentle, with no holds.

Privacy: what you'd ever see

Only what the person chooses to send you: a PDF made on their device and sent by them through the share sheet.
There's no way to request data, nothing to sign in to and no live view.
Their journal is protected by their device's Secure Enclave. Entries appear in a PDF only if they star them or pick them one by one.
Puchku sends none of it to us or to any AI company.

If you'd like to mention Puchku

Puchku is free. We pay no referral fees and ask nothing of you.

Questions

support@puchku.app. If something on this page or in Puchku looks wrong to you, we'd like to hear it.