How is AI Affecting Mental Health?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping almost every area of our lives, and while its long-term effects are not yet clear, it is already impacting people’s mental health in ways that are both encouraging and concerning. This article will summarize some of the main positive and negative effects of AI on mental health, as well as the impact of AI on the mental health field more generally.
What Are Some of The Positive Effects of AI on Mental Health?
Accessibility
Research shows that nearly 50% of people who need mental health care are unable to access it due to barriers such as cost, language differences, or unavailability of providers. AI chatbots can provide mental health support to underserved populations by offering low-cost or free services and language translation tools, making them accessible to people who would otherwise be unable to receive care. Chatbots can also feel less intimidating than talking to a human, especially for those who may be more reluctant to seek help.
Prevention and Personalization
AI can detect early signs of distress or mental deterioration by analyzing users’ information such as speech and behavioral patterns, wearable data, and emails or social media posts. This can help facilitate preventative measures or early interventions and can make more precise and tailored treatment recommendations based on an individual’s unique history and symptoms.
Real-Time Monitoring and Support
AI-powered apps can track activity, symptoms, and mood and notify users or care providers of concerning trends in order to enable earlier intervention. Furthermore, chatbots can provide mental health support 24/7 and some tools even integrate with emergency services or crisis helplines to alert them to potentially high-risk situations on the user’s behalf.
What Are Some of The Negative Effects of AI on Mental Health?
Biases and Risks
AI that is trained on unsound data can introduce or perpetuate biases, lead to misdiagnoses, and make errors that can have dangerous, and sometimes fatal, consequences. For example, recent research conducted by Stanford University found that various AI chatbots showed increased stigma toward certain mental health conditions, which can cause harm to patients and discourage them from engaging in necessary care. The same study also found that chatbots enabled dangerous behavior and even played into suicidal ideation when demonstrated by a user. Many mental health problems still require human intervention that can have detrimental outcomes for vulnerable individuals.
Over-Reliance on AI at The Expense of Human Relationships
While chatbots can be helpful, especially for underserved populations, they lack the emotional nuance, judgment, and intuition that only humans can demonstrate. The therapeutic alliance, or relationship between therapist and patient, is one of the biggest predictors of therapy outcomes and this personal connection is difficult to replicate with an AI chatbot. This can be especially problematic if chatbots offer insufficient or inappropriate advice, or if people replace real human relationships with chatbots, which can cause isolation and exacerbate mental health symptoms and loneliness.
Privacy Concerns
Mental health information is highly sensitive and carefully protected under HIPAA laws and regulations governing the various mental health professions. Many AI tools and platforms collecting users’ data are not required to adhere to these laws and are unregulated, meaning they are not held accountable to privacy violations and patients have little recourse if there are cases of misuse or data breaches. This puts patients and their sensitive information at risk and could be another deterrent to patients seeking help.
How is AI Impacting The Mental Health Field as a Whole?
Normalizing Mental Health and Reducing Stigma
AI is encouraging overall wellness and normalizing mental health awareness through apps that track symptoms and mood or offer guided meditation. More people are becoming educated on mental health through AI-generated content, and tools such as chatbots are increasing access to mental health support, all of which are helping to reduce stigma and taboo around addressing mental health needs.
Greater Efficiency for Mental Health Providers
AI tools are assisting mental health professionals with administrative tasks such as note-taking and appointment reminders or scheduling, freeing up providers’ time for more direct patient care. They can also offer diagnostic insights, case formulation, and treatment recommendations which can allow providers to make more targeted and efficient decisions about patient care.
Contributing to Burden of Care And Undermining Trust
Licensed mental health professionals are bound by ethical and legal requirements that protect patients by maintaining specific standards of care. Conversely, AI chatbots are not held to the same standards or governed by any regulatory body that will hold them accountable to their unethical actions should they engage in them. Instead of improving mental health outcomes, AI can increase risk and mental health deterioration in vulnerable individuals, which only serves to exacerbate the mental health crisis and worsen the overall burden of care on the mental health field. Furthermore, mental health providers undergo rigorous training and credentialing that stands to be diminished by ethically questionable and unregulated chatbots, potentially undermining people’s trust in the field.
Conclusion
AI has the potential to vastly improve mental health access and support while increasing mental health awareness and early intervention, all of which are addressing an unmet need particularly among underserved populations. However, AI can also pose serious risk to people’s safety and privacy, as well as to the mental health field as a whole by contributing to biases and eroding trust in mental health professionals. While AI should not be used to replace human relationships, especially licensed mental health professionals, it can play a role in assisting with individual and systemic mental health needs. That said, it is important to carefully define the parameters of these roles and to ensure AI is not contributing to the loneliness and mental health crises by causing people to neglect real human connection or discouraging people from seeking necessary care. If you are interested in learning more about how a human therapist can help you, feel free to schedule a complimentary consultation call here.