Should You Use Artificial Intelligence (AI) as Your Therapist?

As the demand for therapists increases and artificial intelligence AI becomes more sophisticated people are turning to large language models LLMs as therapeutic tools But should you Experts warn to proceed with caution People who may benefit from therapy and mental medical care often face barricades to accessing it For several chatting with an AI operation might be easier to access and more affordable than a human therapist You can talk with the chatbot as often as you like and from anywhere but mental strength chatbots have limitations you should know about If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental vitality emergency inevitably reach out to a human pool and do not turn to AI for help Dial the predicament line for immediate mental healthcare encouragement via phone and text READ How to Find the Right Mental Medical Counselor for You Human vs AI Therapy LLMs can learn patterns in language and replicate them and AI can even be trained on different therapy techniques such as cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT Benefits of human interaction However while AI may be able to learn language patterns it is incapable of delivering psychotherapy or talk therapy because the core of therapy is a human-to-human interaction says Dr Dave Rabin a board-certified psychiatrist and translational neuroscientist Majority therapy like percent is just meeting a fellow human being where they are in that moment and just making them feel heard and seen and not judged says Rabin AI lacks the ability to spot nuances in tone behavior body language and eye contact that Rabin says are essential to therapy Reinforcement vs gentle challenges The American Psychological Association APA seems to agree that at AI is not a substitute for human therapy In February of APA met with federal regulators and urged legislators to put safeguards in place to protect people from AI chatbots that can affirm users in solutions a trained therapist wouldn t Although various AI models operate differently specific are trained to reinforce a user s worldview or provide overly flattering statements says Ryan K McBain senior guidelines researcher and adjunct professor of strategy analysis at RAND School of General Approach That this can become a problematic feedback loop when a person may benefit from the gentle challenges that a therapist might provide Setting boundaries Another distinction between human therapists and AI chatbots is the ability to set boundaries While the design of the chat tool is smart enough to use language of a therapy style like CBT to engage with you the chatbot isn t going to ask you to stop talking and think about what it just disclosed says Dr Haiyan Wang anatomical director and psychiatrist at Neuro Wellness Spa in Torrance California Instead there is a financial incentive for multiple AI programs to keep you engaged Haiyan contrasts the access to a therapy chatbot with a human therapist where you have to set appointments The appointment means a lot because it s a commitment between the subject and therapist and it allows both parties to set boundaries she says Read How to Prepare for Your First Therapy Session AI Therapy Effectiveness Research on the effectiveness of AI therapy is very new A scrutiny in the New England Journal of Medicine examined a therabot used for mental healthcare therapy It s the first randomized controlled trial to show the effectiveness of an AI therapy bot for treating people with major depressive disorder generalized anxiety disorder or those at a high threat of evolving an eating disorder While users in the trial gave the therabot high ratings researchers concluded that more studies with larger groups are still needed to determine effectiveness A Psychiatry Online research evaluated chatbots powered by LLMs to see how AI responded when someone s suicide danger was at various levels from low to high Researchers revealed that the bots were in line with expert judgment when it came to responding to very low and very high levels of suicide pitfall but there were inconsistencies for liability levels between the two extremes Even with promising research Haiyan has a very cautious attitude when it comes to using AI as therapy or encouraging clients to use it because AI still cannot replace human therapy Rabin says that if you want someone to talk to because you re feeling lonely a chatbot might help But if you re having a serious mental robustness problem or dealing with a mental vitality assessment the AI bot or character isn t going to be able to solve that READ Daily Habits to Boost Your Mental Robustness Simple Policies for Boosting Your Well-Being Risks of AI Therapy Experts warn that there are real risks associated with using AI as therapy especially with news of teens taking their lives after interacting with chatbots In addition a chatbot cannot provide a referral to a psychiatrist prescribe medications or provide guidance for your specific mental wellness situation McBain an author of the Psychiatry Online examination says his main concerns with AI therapy are Unsafe guidance because various chatbots may provide instructions on self-harm substance use or suicide Missed warning signs such as ambiguous expressions of distress Privacy risks that come with sharing deeply personal information without understanding how figures are stored and used A research from the Association for Computer Machinery located that AI chatbots are not effective and can introduce biases and stigmas that could harm someone with mental vitality challenges Researchers concluded that there are a large number of concerns with the safety of AI therapy and LLM is not a replacement for therapists When you employ a machine to do something that a human is required to do you really put people s lives at hazard and their wellness at vulnerability and it s a huge complication says Rabin AI chatbots and children s mental fitness For parents with children dealing with a mental strength concern you may be worried about your child going to a chatbot for mental wellness guidance If you know a child experiencing a mental healthcare emergency it s essential to get them professional human help directly How Can AI Help with Mental Wellbeing It might not excel at providing therapy but there is a role for AI in the mental healthcare world Several therapists use it to help with session note-taking and administrative tasks Wang sees AI transcription during sessions as one of its biggest advantages because it allows the therapist to fully focus on interacting without having to shift focus for note-taking Rabin says AI is great at doing track prediction and response to signs of illness that come up An example of this in action is using generative AI to detect when a person has abnormal biometrics or heart rate variability based on material collected from a wearable device The ability to speedily detect when somebody s highly stressed or about to have a panic attack he says can provide the ability for mental wellness professionals to intervene AI chatbots are likely to work better with highly structured skills-based techniques like practicing behavioral techniques journaling or guided breathing says McBain That s because the responses for these are easier to script and validate If you re feeling lonely and just looking for interaction an AI chatbot may be a source of engaging conversation However if you re in need of mental strength advice or you re in the midst of a mental vitality emergency you need to speak to an actual human Reach out to your vitality care provider or dial for help via text or phone call More from U S News What Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy When to See a Psychiatrist How Foods and Drinks Affect Our Mental Fitness Should You Use Artificial Intelligence AI as Your Therapist originally appeared on usnews com Source