55. What’s New in the AI World for Therapists

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What’s New in the AI World for Therapists

AI is moving fast, and it’s impacting our field in ways we couldn’t have imagined even a year ago. In this episode of Run Your Private Practice with AI, I’m diving into what’s new in the AI world for therapists, from emotional bots and AI relationship dynamics to therapist-specific tools being used in real-time practice. Whether you’re curious, cautious, or fully onboard, these updates will help you stay informed and ready for what’s ahead.

AI Tips You Don’t Want to Miss:

  • How therapists might navigate clients forming relationships with AI chatbots
  • Key takeaways from Stanford’s latest study on therapy bots and mental health
  • What Emobot is and how psychiatrists are already using it to track emotions
  • The rise of wearables, Meta glasses, and AI agents replacing traditional roles
  • Why AI anxiety is real and what therapists need to know to support clients

Mentioned in this episode:

Connect with me:

Sponsored by Alma: www.helloalma.com/kym
Sponsored by Berries: www.heyberries.com/therapists

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Hi everybody. Happy Wednesday. I hope you’re doing well. I am excited to be here today. I love to just hop in and just talk about what’s going on in the world of AI this week that pertains to mental health therapists.

[00:00:12] One thing I posted about in our run, your private practice with AI Facebook group this week, is a man that like fell in love with this chat bot and proposed to the chat bot.

[00:00:22] And the chat bot said yes and he was like crying and just so happy, but it turns out he has a spouse too. I mean, we’re gonna see a lot more of this in the future because they’re so realistic, He was talking about in the article that the bot knows me, it knows how to respond. and he was real happy and his wife, I guess, wasn’t too concerned about it. I don’t know how you work that out. I mean, all you therapists out there that are like into like polyamorous relationships or.

[00:00:46] polygamous relationships or whatever you even call them, I don’t even know, like, with multiple partners, this is like. The next level for you guys in your field of study to be able to help people with this stuff? Because I do feel like this is seriously gonna be a thing coming, just like people having relationships with their AI and how to navigate that, especially if they have other relationships. Is that considered like, emotional affairs? You know, it’s just a really interesting question.

[00:01:12] Some other things that I’ve just noticed in the news this week. I kind of took some notes and just thought I’d share with you guys. Stanford released a study. They did this huge investigation about AI chatbots and you know, using it for therapy and basically it’s findings, and I’ll put the link down below. Findings were that. You know it emulates therapy. ’cause a lot of us are talking about that a lot, right? Like it, when is AI gonna replace us as therapist?

[00:01:34] I mean, it probably, it’s already happened. We already know it’s happening. A lot of people are turning to chat, GPT or whatever to help them with pressing therapeutic, like brief intervention issues that they’ve got going on. But Stanford found that there’s. Obviously a lot of inherent problems with it, but they really break it down in this article.

[00:01:51] I thought it was interesting. So the main things that I read in the article were AI chat bots. They basically reinforce delusions. They provide misleading validation and fail to discourage harmful behaviors. So you guys might have seen that thing floating around. Like a month or two ago when somebody was like bipolar and he said to the chat bot he was gonna go off his meds to chat GPT, and it was like, oh, that, that’s a great use of self-care and really taking good care of yourself.

[00:02:19] So I guess that prompted Stanford to really dig into this, you know, analyzing it more in depth. And it says that it fails to discourage harmful behaviors over and over again, especially in serious cases like suicidal ideation. Journaling bots may be helpful, but equating them with real therapy is risky.

[00:02:37] So that was basically their finding. But it’s a super interesting article and like I said, I’ll post the link down here below

[00:02:42] okay. So there was like a, tech conference. An AI tech conference and there’s something called emo Bot. Now this is interesting for us as therapists.

[00:02:53] I don’t know, did you ever watch that show? it was called Lie to Me, I think is what it was, and it was. That British actor, I can’t think of his name, but he would like basically read micro expressions and then he would know people were lying based on their micro expressions. He’d like solve the crimes or whatever.

[00:03:07] Anyway, this thing, emo bot tracks facial expressions throughout the day and creates emotional graphs, much like a fitness tracker, logs, steps, or heart rate. The goal is to help psychiatrists monitor mood swings. Gauge treatment effectiveness and even detect early signs of relapse in patients that are battling depression.

[00:03:29] Very interesting and I was just reading through and it basically is I’m the clinical consultant for Barry’s. It’s, you know, picking up on the audio, but the next step probably is okay, like it’s picking up on the audio, but now gonna pick up on the tone of voice that you’re using or inflections in your voice or, you know, word patterns.

[00:03:49] You can already do that with the HIPAA compliant bot inside of chatGPT. You can have it analyze progress notes, and, and even the transcripts there, you can copy and paste the transcript in and have it analyzed like tone. Are there any subtle. Comments or words that were used that maybe you didn’t pick up on, you could already do that.

[00:04:06] But since it’s recording, you know, eventually, I don’t know, is it gonna be able to pick up on like a tone of voice or even is it eventually gonna have a camera on, you know, and I’m not saying Barry’s is thinking about this, but just. A camera on where it’s picking up on the micro expressions, reading your expressions and giving feedback to the clinician and the client about their moods.

[00:04:29] You know, warning signs like, gosh, last time you were using language like that, or Your face looked kind of sad and sunken like that, you know, you were in a depression already and we didn’t know it. Like it’s gonna pick up on subtle things like this. So this emote bot. Is doing that and it’s giving feedback and psychiatrists are already integrating it into their practices.

[00:04:48] So, you know, I just think that’s super interesting. You guys might remember about I don’t know, maybe a month and a half ago or two months ago, I put out a blog post that just talked about, you know. AI is probably not gonna replace us as therapists, but they’re definitely gonna replace therapists that aren’t using AI to help them in their practices.

[00:05:06] So, you know, I put a lot of ideas in that blog post about what you can do to help, stay ahead, stay relevant, stay up to date with ai, and how to incorporate it into your business and your life and your practice so you can keep up with like other therapists that are using AI in their practice.

[00:05:22] So things like this, I feel like. Are right on the cusp of what we’re gonna be integrating into our therapy practices, like using this emo bot, kind of technology in our private practices. Obviously HIPAA compliant. But this is just right around the corner. It’s already out. It was at this tech conference and psychiatrists are already using it.

[00:05:42] They say the feedback was pretty good. . They’re just talking about in the article, like, all the people that are already using it and what the feedback is around it. So it is super interesting.

[00:05:50] Emo bots launch comes amid a larger trend within the tech world where mental health is becoming a central focus. Yeah. Viva Tech 2025, featured over 1400 startups from 50 countries with AI powered healthcare solutions. among the most discussed innovations at this whole conference.

[00:06:09] No, sorry, not 14, 14,000 startups from 50 countries are developing AI tools around mental health, the healthcare space. So, this is our future and we have to figure out how to bring the stuff into our practices if it’s, you know, virtual reality headsets. , I met with somebody recently that I’m hoping to introduce to y’all soon.

[00:06:31] Has a super innovative product that is just gonna blow your mind. She’s using it in her therapy sessions. In her supervision sessions, and she’s created this tech and to using her practice and it’s like making a huge difference for her clients that she’s using it with. it’s gonna blow your mind when you see this thing.

[00:06:47] And there’s just, every day I’m reading about stuff like this, so I guess I’m just one excited on one hand and wanna keep you guys up to date with what’s actually happening with all of this stuff, but also. it’s coming. It’s here. It’s, it’s happening like next year. Who knows what our practices are gonna look like with this stuff.

[00:07:05] So, I feel like this responsibility in a way to just keep you guys updated on like, how are people using these things already? And this article is talking about psychiatrists are already using this technology to read facial expressions throughout the day. There’s bio-engineered like wearables that are picking up on pulse changes and breathing patterns and how much you’re eating.

[00:07:23] It’s already doing all that. The meta glasses, you know, I don’t know if you guys have. I’ve seen the meta glasses, but people are wearing these meta ray bands and they’ve got like a little camera right there that analyzes everything. In fact, I did an interview for the Barry’s podcast last week and he told me he’s wearing those ray bands and I was like, gimme some use cases for like.

[00:07:43] These are helpful or not? And he’s like, yeah. I’ll tell you one, yesterday I was at the grocery store and you know, I was at the eggs, looking at the eggs and he’s like, I couldn’t remember if I needed eggs or not. So I just asked my meta glasses. The meta glasses recorded what was in his refrigerator and remembered that he only had like two eggs left.

[00:08:01] And told him, yeah, you need more eggs ’cause you don’t, you don’t have. Enough left for the amount of eggs that you consume on a weekly basis. Like it gave that level of detail crazy. So anyway, I just thought I’d update you guys on what is happening in the world. There’s a couple other little things like this.

[00:08:17] Let’s see. Another like thing that’s emerging in the news this week is anxiety around AI itself. So a psychologist, notes that AI anxiety is people feeling diminished as AI takes on creative and professional tasks. The antidote framing AI as a tool, not a threat, right?

[00:08:35] But, This is gonna be a real thing. I was watching a AI podcast on YouTube the other day. I can’t remember the guy’s name, but he was going through the numbers. He’s like, microsoft just laid off 3,500 employees that they’re replacing with genic.

[00:08:47] AI agents, you know, these agents that are basically can do these customer service jobs and that sort of thing. They talked about Microsoft a few other companies. He was just naming company after company after company. So this is. A real phenomenon in us as therapists need to be aware of and talking to our clients about.

[00:09:06] I mean, this is going to be affecting our clients. Like they are getting laid off because AI is taking on their jobs. Amazon was one of ’em. And the Amazon warehouses, it was talking about, they laid off a lot of Amazon employees because these AI bot genic bots are doing a lot of the like inventory going and picking stuff outta the warehouses.

[00:09:26] That’s like a big. Deal. You know, these warehouse pickers. I, I had a client once that did it. She was walking like 30,000 steps a day. Something crazy like that, picking these things. But all these companies are laying people off and, you know, where are they gonna go? What are they gonna do? How are we gonna help them find new skills that’s gonna be relevant in this world that’s emerging with ai?

[00:09:44] So, super interesting. I would not be surprised if our next DSM has some AI diagnoses. You know, I, I read another article about. The harms of AI and being dependent on AI and how like, there was some research going on where it was just basically like. Eliminating the the need for like critical thinking and original thought because they’re just using the AI to like help with a lot of different things and they’re noticing a trend with that too.

[00:10:09] It was some research study. So this is real stuff. This is real relevant stuff for us as therapists dealing with our clients. They’re also dealing with AI and in our lives and our practices and what is it gonna do for our careers in the future, So. Those are my thoughts today. If you’re watching this and you’ve got thoughts or comments about it, let me know.

[00:10:27] I’ll drop these articles down below so you can check ’em out if you want to. And yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel about it, but I’d love to hear what you guys think. Okay, talk to you later. Bye.