Can AI Be Your Therapist? A Study From Brown Says…Careful
Midjourney
Dr. Bot: Telehealth therapy has become increasingly popular as a convenient alternative to in-person sessions. Now, people who use ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs) for mental-health help don’t even interact with actual humans at all, let alone in an office. According to new research from Brown University, they should proceed with caution. Researchers found AI platforms fail to meet established psychotherapy ethical standards or use evidence-based approaches, even when prompted to do so.
The Study: Computer scientists from Brown worked with trained peer counselors and licensed psychotherapists. The counselors entered prompts based on real therapy sessions into ChatGPT, Claude, and Llama. The chats were analyzed by psychotherapists for ethical violations. They found 15 violations across five categories.
The Takeaway: The AI chatbots often amplified feelings of rejection or parroted false beliefs. They also exhibited gender and other bias, responded indifferently or failed to provide resources when a user had suicidal ideation, and offered cookie-cutter advice that failed to factor in the individual’s lived experience.
Keep in Mind: The researchers said AI tools have potential to improve access to therapy, particularly in light of the shortage of mental-health practitioners. But it requires oversight and clear standards of care, as there are with human therapists.
