One in three women in the world have experienced sexual violence in their lives. For sexual assault survivors, healing is not a linear process even after therapy. As intimacy begins or returns in a relationship, it is often a difficult journey for both survivors and their partners. This project aims to support couples in their shared healing journey, and to raise awareness of this often overlooked aspect of sexual assault.

Epione is a toolkit that creates space for intimacy for sexual assault survivors and their partners. It consists of a grounding device that helps couples connect with the present moment through synchronising their heart rates, and a card game that encourages communicating boundaries between couples. 

While every healing journey is unique, some common challenges cited by survivors and their partners during research include: 

• Survivors often feel a sense of loss of control;


• Both partners feel disconnected with each other; and


• Couples look for ways to redefine intimacy.

The project was done over nine weeks, with over 20 hours of in-depth interviews and co-creation sessions with survivors, partners of survivors, and subject matter experts. Testing was done through rapid prototyping from conceptual digital prototypes to physical haptic prototypes.