AI Therapy in Sessions: APA Survey Finds Rising Chatbot Use and Safety Risks
An American Psychological Association (APA) survey of more than 1,200 U.S. psychologists says AI therapy is increasingly showing up in real sessions. More than three-quarters of psychologists reported that patients discussed using AI for mental health support, diagnosis, or companionship.
Key figures: 77% said patients discussed AI for emotional support, diagnosis, companionship, or related purposes. 39% of psychologists reported patient self-diagnosis using AI. 33% said patients used chatbots to assist with therapy or treatment. 35% said patients used AI as an additional mental health professional.
Safety and privacy concerns were common. Over a third (36%) of psychologists said they noticed dependency on chatbots. 15% reported distorted thinking or delusions tied to chatbot interactions. Many also cited worries that chatbots may reinforce negative behaviors or beliefs (97%) and lack clinical nuance (94%).
The APA notes AI can help people organize thoughts and supplement care, but it is not a safe or effective replacement for licensed mental health professionals. The report also arrives amid broader research warning that some leading AI models can reinforce delusions, paranoia, and suicidal ideation—raising ongoing legal and ethical scrutiny of chatbot harms.
Neutral
This news is about mental-health safety and clinical risk management of chatbots, not about crypto networks, tokenomics, or regulation that directly targets crypto markets. So it is unlikely to move BTC/ETH flows in a direct, sustained way.
In the short term, traders may treat it as part of broader “AI risk” headlines, similar to past cycles where negative safety findings about high-profile tech models briefly pressured sentiment around related tech equities or consumer-AI narratives. However, there’s no clear linkage here to crypto infrastructure or liquid token demand.
In the long term, only indirect effects are possible: if AI product liability and healthcare-safety scrutiny intensify, it could affect funding/valuation expectations for AI vendors and the broader tech risk premium. Crypto impact would still be second-order (risk sentiment), not a direct catalyst for coin-specific price action.