Americans are turning to artificial intelligence tools for mental health advice and therapists are divided.
An American Psychological Association (APA) survey released June 16 found that 39% of psychologists have had conversations with patients who used AI to self-diagnose. About one-third of respondents said their patients are relying on AI for help with self-discipline, affirmations or behavioral reminders, while 33% said they were using the technology to assist with their treatment, the poll found.
Analysts warned the Daily Caller News Foundation that while using AI for mental health advice is affordable and allows users easy access to information, it can also lead to issues like providing patients biased data.
“AI is cheap, knowledgeable, personalized, engaging and saw faster adoption than any other technology in human history,” Cato Institute Research Fellow Adam Omary told the DCNF. “It is not surprising that people are drawn to AI for mental health advice, both because of its ability to distill complex research and expert guidelines as it does with medicine, and for companionship.”
Omary noted AI can “incorporate the best available psychology research, be personalized precisely to a user’s preferences, and have superhuman familiarity with practically any topic or cultural context.”
He suggested AI may “also be biased by its training data, meaning it is necessary to be selective about what information it is trained on, because even much of psychology research has proven unreplicable.”
“In-person therapy is not going anywhere … Even if AI therapy were poorer quality, its low cost and wide accessibility would make it potentially beneficial and additive to the existing mental health care industry,” Omary continued.
AI tools can also be used for certain mental healthcare-related administrative tasks such as automating scheduling and appointment reminders, making communication more efficient and summarizing patients’ health records, according to the APA.
Many Americans may be increasingly relying on AI for mental health-related questions due as it is convenient and can provide information at “little to no cost,” according to California-based psychologist Dr. Zachary Ginder.
“Many people are turning to AI as a first line intervention for mental health questions because it is low-friction, instantly available from a personal device, seemingly private, and offered at little to no cost,” Ginder explained to the DCNF. “Folks needing a quick check-in on a mental health question don’t have to go through insurance or the medical system, be externally vulnerable to another person, or worry about the still prevalent stigma that exists in seeking help from a professional … However, there are significant limitations and risks.”
“If we are talking specifically about general LLMs like ChatGPT or Claude, I have to advise against using them for specific clinical treatment questions or counseling via chatbot,” he added. “Even some direct to consumer chatbots advertised as mental health or wellbeing apps are not clinically validated.”
A chatbot refers to a computer program that can simulate human conversations, often using AI, according to IBM. Some AI chatbots can exhibit heightened stigma toward mental health conditions such as alcohol dependence and schizophrenia compared to conditions like depression, according to Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered AI.
Ginder also noted that because the U.S. does not currently have a “consistent regulatory [AI] framework, most of these tools exist outside of any oversight, and we have seen the tragic results of AI and suicide.”
Some U.S. states have recently implemented laws aiming to prevent AI chatbots from providing mental health advice to young users in the aftermath of certain individuals committing self-harm after using such AI-powered programs for therapy, Stateline reported in January.
An October 2025 study from Brown University researchers found that AI chatbots commonly violated several key mental health ethics standards. AI can also provide patients misleading or inaccurate diagnoses, according to the APA.
Users can sometimes form parasocial attachments to AI programs, which may result in delusional thinking, dysregulated emotions and even social withdrawal, according to the Journal of Mental Health and Clinical Psychology.
“There is no putting the toothpaste back in the tube,” Ginder told the DCNF. “AI is not going anywhere, and the prevalence of adoption of AI tools by the general public continues to grow. The younger generation is also already used to doing a search before asking a person. AI leverages this generational shortcut.”
“Ideally, regulatory bodies, internal safeguards, and legal frameworks will catch up with the AI wave.”
(DCNF)
