A new standard in mental health
Galea began as a research-driven project known as eGRiST, designed to capture and structure the reasoning of mental health professionals. Rooted in decades of academic work, it grew into a trusted tool for assessing concern and understanding mental health complexity. As part of our next chapter, Galea operates under the parent company Xperfecta, continuing its mission to make mental health insight more accessible, accountable, and human.
Beginnings
The origins of what would eventually become Galea trace back to Dr. Christopher (Fif) Buckingham’s PhD research. He devised a psychological model of how people naturally make decisions, which he called the Galatean model, after Pygmalion's perfect woman. The idea was that people represent classes by the perfect example rather than the typical one. This foundational idea challenged established theories about how people assess concern and probability, eventually becoming the basis for a new way to capture and apply mental health expertise.
Early years
Fif first applied his decision-making model to the tricky task of selecting suitable people for psychodynamic psychotherapy. A later application to mental-health risk screening developed into GRiST (Galatean Risk and Safety Technology), which received a number of grants over the years from the UK Government, European Union, and health charities. The system offered a unique method for understanding and reasoning about mental health concerns and needs at a time when digital mental health infrastructure was virtually non-existent.
Renaissance
In 2022, GRiST became an independent company with a team that could concentrate on integrating the research ideas for embedding human intelligence in the software. Most recently, Fif set up Xperfecta as an umbrella company for the core decision technologies that can be applied to many different sectors. GRiST was renamed Galea and is now part of the Xperfecta family.