Ben Caldwell, Author at Psychotherapy Notes

An AI therapist can’t really do therapy. Many clients will choose it anyway.

August 19, 2024August 15, 2024 by Ben Caldwell

Woman working on laptop in an apartment window / Photo by Matthew Henry via Burst / Used under license It just isn’t the same, I hear over and over, from psychotherapists shrugging away concern over artificial intelligence. An AI therapist can’t really empathize. It can’t truly understand. It can’t build a therapeutic relationship with depth and connectedness the way a human therapist can.

As a therapist myself, I agree with all of these statements. An AI therapist is not equivalent to a human therapist. Like many therapists, I tend to focus on the ways that AI falls short.

But for clients, in many ways, an AI therapist is better than a human one.

AI therapy is about to make therapy a lot cheaper

August 19, 2024August 14, 2024 by Ben Caldwell

Hands on laptop / Photo by Matthew Henry via Burst / Used under license “I’m in L.A. We have a lot of therapists,” Angelle Haney Gullett told the Washington Post in 2022. “So it’s just kind of wild to me that that many people are at capacity.” She had contacted 25 different therapists after her father passed away, knowing that she needed help. Even though she was willing to pay cash, not one would take her. No one would even put her on a waiting list.

She’s not alone. Tens of thousands of Americans struggle to access mental health care even when they know they need it, and even when their health insurance covers it. But for clients like Angelle, mental health care is about to get much easier to access. It’s about to get a lot less expensive, too. This will happen thanks to artificial intelligence. AI therapy is already here, and it’s about to upend US mental health care.

Therapy and coaching: Understanding the differences

May 15, 2024 by Ben Caldwell

It’s not unusual for private practice therapists to seek to expand their practices through coaching. Some clients will engage in coaching, but not therapy, because of the stigma they associate with therapy. At the same time, some therapists note that the unregulated nature of coaching means that anyone can call themselves a “coach,” regardless of qualifications. So “coaching” sometimes carries stigma in the world of licensed therapists.

Setting aside stigma, though, what are the actual differences between coaching and therapy? How different do these practices need to be in order for therapists to engage in both?

To solve mental health provider shortage, states propose loans they call “scholarships”

April 23, 2024 by Ben Caldwell

Your state needs more mental health providers. Policymakers and professional organizations know this. But legislators are reluctant to take actions that would get more folks licensed. So what can they do instead? Scholarships! (Yes, you should say it this way.)