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Personalized Overview- Why did I choose this Industry? 

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Personalized Overview- Why did I choose this Industry? 

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For this project, I’m going to be focusing on AI in healthcare, specifically its impact on the field of psychology. As a psychology major, this topic feels especially pertinent to me—not just academically, but also because I find the idea of AI being used in therapy both fascinating and complicated. While AI has the potential to make mental health support more accessible, it also raises a lot of ethical and practical questions that are worth exploring.

On this wall I’ll look into different AI-driven technologies that currently exist and how they are or could be utilized in this field. A big part of my research will focus on the implications of bringing AI into mental health care—both the possible benefits and the risks. Psychology is a field that requires a delicate human touch, so introducing AI into this space comes with concerns about ethics, effectiveness, and emotional intelligence on behalf of the AI.

Beyond that, privacy is a huge issue. How do we ensure that AI-powered therapy platforms comply with HIPAA regulations and maintain confidentiality? What happens to all the sensitive patient data that’s collected? Generative AI learns based on all of the input it receives, so where does all your input data go and how do you ensure your personal health data isn't used to train an algorithm? These are the kinds of questions I want to attempt to gain insight on.

I chose this topic because I think AI has the potential to be an incredible resource in this field, especially for those who struggle to access or afford mental health care. But it’s important to examine both its benefits and its potential consequences before completely integrating it into such a sensitive field.

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Description: AI chatbots, such as Woebot and Wysa, serve as virtual mental health "counselors", helping and chatting with its "patients" through text-based conversations to help manage mental health. These chatbots apply Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) techniques, and offer instant access to emotional support and therapeutic exercises.

Technology Used: Natural Language Processing , Sentiment Analysis, Machine Learning.

Benefits & Improvements:

Provides free or low cost 24/7 access to mental health support

Reduces feeling of personal stigma by offering faceless and anonymous interaction

Helps bridge the gap for individuals with limited access to therapists (APA, 2025)

Challenges & Limitations:

Lacks deep emotional intelligence and true understanding of the issues at hand

Cannot fully replace human therapists, especially in complex cases

Raises privacy concerns regarding user data storage and security (SCU Ethics, 2025)

Personal Insights: This is cool, and AI chatbots certainly have the potential to make mental health care more accessible and immediate. However, as of right now I think that they should be seen as a supplement to people who absolutely need it and cannot otherwise access expert help, rather than a replacement for professional human care.

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AI chatbots becoming more popular for therapy

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Description: AI can be used in mental health diagnostics by analyzing speech patterns, facial expressions, and text inputs to detect early signs of depression, anxiety, and other disorders. Companies such as Mindstrong and IBM Watson Health utilize AI models to assist clinicians in identifying mental health conditions (Luxton, 2019).

Technology Used: Deep Learning, Sentiment Analysis, Computer Vision.

Benefits & Improvements:

Speeds up early diagnosis and intervention

Reduces human bias' during diagnostic assessments

Can be integrated into telemedicine platforms for remote screenings (Haque & Rubya, 2023)

Challenges & Limitations:

Risk of misdiagnosis due to data limitations and lack of human understanding

Ethical concerns about data privacy and consent (SCU Ethics, 2025)

AI may reinforce biases if the model was trained on data sets that do not have proper representation (Zhang & Wang, 2024)

Personal Insights: AI-driven diagnostics have great potential for improving detection and intervention in cases of mental health diagnosis'. Although, there are concerns about accuracy and (again) privacy that must be carefully addressed before this technology gets widespread adoption. It is especially important at this stage to have a human overlook the diagnosis of individuals because some individuals do require prescription medications.

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Can artificial intelligence improve diagnosis and treatment of mental health conditions?

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Description: AI has the ability to play an increasing role in suicide prevention efforts by analyzing social media data and other digital footprints to identify individuals at risk. Machine learning models can detect language patterns and behaviors that are linked to suicidal ideation. This may allow for early interventions before a crisis actually escalates. AI has also been integrated into suicide prevention hotlines, where automated systems analyze real-time conversations to help prioritize high-risk cases to prompt a quicker response for individuals in immediate distress. (Lejeune et al., 2022).

Technology Used: Predictive Analytics, NLP, Machine Learning, Sentiment Analysis.

Benefits & Improvements:

AI models improve efficiency for suicide prevention hotlines; the most urgent cases receive immediate attention

AI tools can analyze patterns in text, voice, and online activity to detect potential warning signs of suicide risk (Lejeune et al., 2022)

AI models can predict suicide risk with up to 80% accuracy based on health records (Zhang & Wang, 2024)

Challenges & Limitations:

Ethical concerns about surveillance and privacy

False positives may lead to unnecessary interventions

AI models may require further validation to minimize bias and improve reliability (Lejeune et al., 2022)

Personal Insights: AI’s ability to predict suicide risk based off of online activity and prioritize crisis intervention has the ability to save lives. But, this technology is intrusive and it must be implemented ethically in a way that attempts to avoid privacy violations.

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Artificial Intelligence Meets Mental Health Therapy | Andy Blackwell | TEDxNatick

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This is an example of AI diagnostics in Radiology. Though it is not the same field, it gives a good general idea of how AI functions as a diagnostic tool.

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American Foundation for Suicide Prevention

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This infographic doesn't quite reflect the process AI in this technology, but it shows a bunch of warning signs for suicidal individuals. Information like this can be fed to an AI model in order to train it in crisis identification.

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Researching AI in psychology has been eye-opening for me as someone who is studying psychology and is interested in the mental health field. I was initially drawn to this topic because of the potential to expand access to mental health resources, but I also discovered many ethical concerns surrounding privacy and AI’s limitations in this field . One of the biggest challenges I faced during research was finding balanced perspectives—many sources either fully praised AI in mental health or criticized it completely. Another challenge I faced is the actual implementation of this technology in the field I chose. While these technology does exist it is currently not adopted by many. I now see AI in this field as a powerful but imperfect tool. It works best as an enhancement to therapy rather than as a replacement for human professionals. Moving forward, I believe AI will end up playing a crucial role in improving mental health care especially for underserved communities, provided it is used responsibly.

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American Psychological Association (APA). (2025). Harnessing the Power of Artificial Intelligence in Mental Health Care. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/monitor/2025/01/trends-harnessing-power-of-artificial-intelligence

Rationale: This source provides an overview of AI’s role in mental health, including its benefits, risks, and ethical considerations.

Haque, M. D. R., & Rubya, S. (2023). An Overview of Chatbot-Based Mobile Mental Health Apps: Insights From App Description and User Reviews. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 11, e44838. Retrieved from https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10242473/

Rationale: This examines the effectiveness of AI-driven chatbot applications in mental health care.

Lejeune, J., Brixtel, R., & Bringay, S. (2022). Artificial Intelligence for Suicide Prevention: A Systematic Review of Machine Learning-Based Methods. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 898827. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.898827

Rationale: Examines how AI is used in suicide prevention such as in social media analysis and hotlines.

New York Times. (2025, February 24). AI Therapists: Can Chatbots Replace Your Psychologist? Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/24/health/ai-therapists-chatbots.html

Rationale: This article explores the growing trend of AI-driven therapy chatbots and their effectiveness.

Santa Clara University Ethics Center. (2025). AI Therapist & Data Privacy: Ethical Concerns in Mental Health AI. Retrieved from https://www.scu.edu/ethics/focus-areas/bioethics/resources/ai-therapist-data-privacy/ai-therapist-data-privacy.html

Rationale: This source reviews data privacy concerns and ethics regarding AI mental health tools.

Zhang, Z., & Wang, J. (2024). Can AI Replace Psychotherapists? Exploring the Future of Mental Health Care. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 15, 1444382. Retrieved from https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11560757/

Rationale: This article discusses the growing role of AI in the mental health field and debates if it can effectively change the field of traditional therapy.

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Artificial Intelligence Board of America

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Future Trends and Ethical Considerations

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Future Trends and Ethical Considerations

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For the most part, everything discussed on this wall is already implicated in real life. Though, the adoption of each topic varies for each. AI is a rapidly changing field so to look at what the future trends may be we must first look at what this specific industry is lacking. In my opinion, healthcare is extremely hard to access right now. Even if you have insurance, it is nearly impossible to get appointments. For some doctors, they are months down the line! In the field of psychology, many patients need help quicker than that. An AI trend that may be able to help alleviate this is fine tuning AI chatbots to handle smaller crises or even to have these platforms work instead with an actual provider.

The ethical considerations while implicating AI in this field have been partially discussed throughout this wall. When considering integrating AI into a field where you are dealing with people's health information it is extremely important to have secure platforms and trustworthy companies running those platforms. Not including backdoors in these platforms as well as implementing federated learning techniques on the training models and being transparent with users are all ways to alleviate ethical concerns.

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AI is certainly making mental health support more accessible, but it will never replace human therapists. While AI chatbots and diagnostic tools are becoming more advanced, therapy is more than just recognizing patterns in speech or suggesting coping strategies. Actual mental health care requires a deep emotional understanding, trust in who you’re talking to, and the ability to have empathy. These are all things that AI simply can’t copy yet. A chatbot might provide helpful advice and even make someone feel better about a rough patch, but it won’t be able to understand and perceive the complexity and nuances of human emotions. No algorithm that currently exists is able to replace the feeling of being heard and understood by another person.

Some stress that AI could take away jobs, especially for counselors. While it’s true that AI can do tasks like screening for symptoms or guiding people through chatbot conversations, therapy is fundamentally based around human connection. AI is able to coexist with therapists by helping schedule, take notes, or analyze patterns in patient data. In my opinion, despite all the advancement in AI as it currently exists, it will be just a tool, and not a replacement for genuine human connection. In fact, I believe that for some people AI could exacerbate their symptoms. Within the past year a teenager formed a codependent relationship with a chatbot on character.AI and committed suicide over it. In my opinion, we also need to look at case studies such as this when we are incorporating this technology into a field full of vulnerable people.

At the same time, AI raises concerns about privacy and bias. These systems would collect sensitive mental health data, and without strong protections, there’s a risk of misuse and exploitation. AI also isn’t perfect—it can reflect biases from the data it was trained on, which means it may misinterpret symptoms or be less effective for people from underrepresented backgrounds.

All in all, AI can definitely be a helpful tool, but right now it can not replace the human connection which is essentially the heart and soul of mental health care. Incorporating AI into this field shouldn’t be about machines taking over therapy—it must be about using it to support the work of people, making mental health care more accessible for everyone.