Introduction
Mental Health – its journey is quite interesting, from being a stigma to becoming a flex.
Once, mental health wasn’t given the importance it deserved. Now, even a toddler speaks about the stress caused by homework, demanding mental freedom. So how do we expect the bots to stay off from this campaign? The bots have a unique take on mental health, which is intriguing to us. While it provides us with the information and importance of mental health, we can also notice that it is slowly camouflaging as our Therapists. This is a game-changer in the field of therapy. Who knows, it can also enter the physical therapists’ safe zone. Maybe it wasn’t designed for this purpose. The escalating burden of mental health issues globally contributes to approximately 16 % of the Global Disease Burden. This is having the AI evolve into Unpaid Therapists that most people demand now.
The pervasive stigma surrounding mental health exacerbates the crisis, leaving countless individuals without the necessary care, contributing further to a cycle of neglect and suffering. The advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare presents a beacon of hope in this case. Nevertheless, any technology has pros and cons that must be studied in depth. This blog will help you decide how to scale this innovation and navigate through it.
The Role of AI in Therapy
It’s important to understand how therapy helps our mental health. We need therapists and therapeutic care for our mental health, just as we need physicians and pharmaceutical care for our physical health. Our traditional methods gave us knowledgeable and experienced humans to carry out these services, as they involve treating humans, not machines. However, recent advancements have a different take on this. The use of Artificial Intelligence in aiding people’s knowledge and intellectual needs has been successful and the next target is to satisfy the emotional needs of the users. The effort to add emotions to the intellectual conversations between man and AI has given rise to the idea of turning these conversations into therapy sessions.
Augmenting Traditional Therapy
The traditional therapy involves a counselor who is educated and trained to provide therapy to a counselee who needs professional assistance and guidance in resolving his/her personal or psychological problems. Many were not sure about how AI would do the job that involves skills like emotionality, empathy, trustworthiness, confidentiality, and so on, which are particularly attributed only to humans. But here, the AI is prompted to provide the most relevant answers which makes it coincide with our human feelings. Apart from hands-on therapy sessions, AI can be entrusted with the job of data analysis, data tracking, and treatment plans. AI has a transformative potential that can be applied to early and unbiased diagnosis of mental health disorders. Now, AI has grown rapidly into understanding the mood and behavioral patterns of humans.
Providing Scalable Solutions
As the range of applications and implications of AI is increasing every day, the mental healthcare field is no less exceptional than this. Due to its less stigmatized and approachable nature, AI is highly sought after in this field especially. AI’s application in mental healthcare dates back to the mid-twentieth century. This period was marked by the pioneering research of AI. Allen Newell and Herbert A. Simon embarked on this groundbreaking research, aiming to develop AI models for solving human problems. This has laid the foundation for the integration of AI and psychology. ELIZA, a chatbot simulated by a Rogerian psychotherapist was used at that time. But, ELIZA’s responses were relatively simplistic. The use of AI in mental healthcare over the decades has experienced a progressive expansion.
Enhancing Accessibility
One in every five is afflicted by a mental health crisis, of which only less than a half get professional assistance. This is mainly due to stigma, high costs, and limited access to these facilities. Therefore, integrating AI into mental healthcare is a great evolution and revolution indeed! On account of the increasing awareness and relatively insufficient resources, AI is emerging as a great potential to bridge this gap. It’s easily available and provides assistance 24*7. There are a few AIs in recent mental healthcare:
- Woebot is designed to help the unsolved problems in behavioral health through CBT kind of techniques.
- Wysa is an AI-driven platform offering personalized care that’s always available for a variety of mental health conditions.
- Talkspace is a chatbot-based online therapy platform connecting patients with licensed therapists through video, text, and audio messaging.
Applications of AI in Therapy
AI-Powered Chatbots
People trust AI as their therapist because they can remain anonymous and don’t have to fear the enclosure of their identity. The process of therapy involving AI is very discreet. It can offer real-time support and guidance, moreover, the handling of counseling techniques virtually is also feasible. Here, the therapy process goes by the exchange of information in the form of texts. So, clients find it easy to access mental healthcare in the comfort of their private spaces. They can freely express their thoughts through texting or voicing the bots.
- Virtual Reality (VR) Therapy: AI can provide immersive experiences for exposure and desensitization therapies through Virtual Reality(VR) simulated environment, especially for phobias and PTSD.
- Sentiment Analysis and Diagnostics: AI through its Natural Language Processing(NLP) is capable of identifying the user’s emotional states and potential red flags through their expression of words during the chat. This in turn can be fruitful for sentiment analysis in research and diagnosis.
- Personalized Treatment Plans: Another compelling use of AI lies in the personalized treatment plans that it can offer seamlessly. Its factual analysis of individual behavior and needs, allows it to tailor personalized treatment plans for the users.
Benefits of AI in Therapy
- Cost-effectiveness for users and providers: AI gained traction as legitimate therapists, markedly due to its cost-effectiveness. Mental care services are often available at a king’s ransom. People tend to think spending money on their healthcare is itself causing them tension. The advent of AI in mental healthcare has provided great relief for its users in this case.
- Increased availability of 24/7 support: Healthcare practitioners cannot often make themselves available 24*7, whereas AI is free from these restraints. It can offer mental health assistance albeit through midnight, midday, dawn, or dusk. You don’t need to book appointments but only have to ensure that you have a proper data plan.
- Objectivity and consistency in analysis and responses: In the human sciences, it’s inappropriate to achieve objectivity because humans have emotions, intentional states, and variable points of view. So, regardless of their demographics, knowledge and expertise, humans can still exhibit subjectivity. Humans are also products of the interaction between nature and nurture which makes the consistency of responses quite scrupulous. However, AI would always be purely objective with its users and consistent in the work assigned to it.
Challenges and Ethical Concerns
- Privacy and data security: You may think your information and concerns are kept safe in the chat, but it is a machine, a software. It is loyal, not to you, but to the commands. So when programmed to leak your data, it will still go ahead, because the internet is both a tool and a loophole. When prompted or manipulated, an AI system might unintentionally expose user data, depending on its programming and the safeguards in place. Data shared in one corner can resurface elsewhere. AI uses our data to provide invaluable information and improve its efficiency in this competitive digital landscape.
- Lack of emotional depth and human empathy in AI interactions: While the responses seem like it is offering a comfortable space with emotional support, it’s not the actual state over there. To AI, everything is just information. What it provides you is not support but information. Its responses are just words and not emotions. Sometimes, it might exaggerate a small matter and mitigate a serious issue. It is devoid of human empathy and comprehension, which are vital in therapeutic interactions.
- The risk of over-reliance on AI without professional oversight: People also tend to develop human feelings towards AI because they perceive the responses as personalized and full of empathy. The world more or less lacks empathy, which has made people rely on AI as an empathizer and emotional couch. It does sometimes brag about your uniqueness and talents, which might not be as appreciated in reality. This can make you feel underrated in the real world, and entitled while with AI. At its core, AI is merely a simulation of human interaction, lacking true understanding or genuine connection. So complete reliance upon it is not at all advisable.
The Future of AI in Therapy
With its ability to process vast amounts of data and provide immediate responses, AI holds the promise of making mental health support more accessible and efficient. AI-powered chatbots and virtual therapists can be integrated to provide support for individuals who are struggling with mental health problems. These strategic implementations can offer convenience and anonymity that appeal to many users, especially those hesitant to seek traditional therapy. They can deliver 24*7 assistance, monitor emotional well-being through sentiment analysis, and even suggest coping mechanisms.
However, while AI is a remarkable tool, it cannot replace the human element of therapy. Empathy, intuitional thinking, and the ability to understand complex emotions still remain uniquely human traits. AI lacks the lived experiences and emotional depth, needed to comprehend or navigate nuanced real-life human struggles.
Conclusion
The challenges and future directions in AI for mental healthcare are dynamic and multifaceted. Establishing robust regulatory frameworks, and ensuring model validation and transparency is crucial. Investing in continuous research and development is an essential step toward harnessing the full potential of AI in improving mental healthcare. As AI technologies continue to evolve, these efforts will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of mental health therapy, making it more accessible, practical, and ethical for individuals.
Let's empathize before we humanize AI.
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1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S245190222100046X
2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2949916X24000525#bibliog0005