Psychotherapy Notes

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.)

A therapist fact check of Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up

April 12, 2024April 11, 2024 by Ben Caldwell

Front cover of Bad Therapy: Why the kids aren't growing up by Abigail Shrier As a licensed therapist, I am not the intended audience for Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up. It’s written for those who are skeptical of mental health care and even mental health terminology directed at kids. It casts therapists and teachers as condescending elites who generally view parents as obstacles to children’s thriving.

I’ll credit author Abigail Shrier for this: I found myself agreeing more than I expected to. She identifies some potentially problematic trends in mental health care, criticizes some ways the language of mental health (and trauma in particular) has become culturally ingrained, and ultimately encourages anxious parents to chill out and let their kids’ childhood unfold. My wife and I are both licensed family therapists, and she works with kids, so we spend a lot of time discussing these very issues — and often land where Shrier does.