In today’s column, I am continuing my ongoing series about the impact of generative AI in the health and medical realm. The focus this time is on the use of generative AI to aid in performing mental health therapy, which I’ve previously covered extensively from a variety of perspectives such as the client-therapist relationship transformations at the link here and where things are headed concerning the levels of AI-based mental therapy autonomous guidance at the link here, just to name a few.
The particular interest here is whether generative AI can perform mental health reasoning.
Allow me to emphasize that the catchphrase of “mental health reasoning” is the place where we all enter into a complex murky space and ought to be extremely mindful of what the expression signifies and what if anything it has to do with AI, including and especially generative AI.
I shall first set the stage for this elucidation and lay out the course of the journey herein.
Words About Thoughts Are Very Important
Suppose that a person opts to use generative AI for advice on a mental health concern. The person engages in a back-and-forth dialogue with the generative AI, such as an illustrative discourse that I closely analyzed in detail regarding experiencing ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), see my analysis at the link here. There isn’t a human therapist in the loop. In other words, this is someone who has sought out the use of generative AI on their own and is not under the care of a human therapist.
In case you think the above scenario is an outlier or rarity, please be aware that the use of generative AI for mental health guidance is readily available right now. There are