People are rightly concerned about people using chatbots for therapy when it’s a big surveillance tool in league with government that’s not just contemptuous of privacy, but now in the US is headed up by officials and agencies that are targeting people for their political positions. Chatbot therapy is a good way to make yourself a sitting duck for political abuse of psychiatry.
There’s been evidence for years that the type of therapy you get isn’t as indicative about how effective it is, that it’s the actual relationship with the therapist that counts. Most preferably a trusted relationship. That’s why all the advice out there tells you to switch therapists and don’t feel bad about it if it’s not working. A client can’t have a relationship with a chatbot because AI doesn’t exist like that, it’s not sentient and can’t really even pretend to be.
My letter to reps:
Chatbot therapy defeats the purpose of mental health therapy since the therapeutic value is in the relationship with a trained professional. This should not be offered as a substitute or even a supplement to mental healthcare.
Please feel free to copy or repurpose for your own letters to reps.
FYI: I don’t use the term “behavioural health” because it’s just furthering the PR framing of mental healthcare being about controlling behavior rather than relieving suffering, and that in itself is a form of political abuse of psychiatry.