How AI is changing the future of mental health care

Hosted by Dr Andreas Kappes, Senior Lecturer in Psychology in the School of Health & Psychological Sciences at City, the ‘How will AI Change the Future of Mental Health Care?’ event was the second alumni event hosted by the Department of Psychology. It was well attended by former graduates and members of the wider University community, and it gave participants an excellent opportunity to engage in expert talks and thought-provoking conversations with fellow alumni, students and academics.

AI everywhere

Besides many other areas, AI is now also said to be “transforming mental health”, and AI-based technologies are currently being used in almost every domain of mental health care. In addition, a growing body of evidence suggests that AI can help with diagnosing conditions, developing therapies, and enabling more personalised approaches and treatments.

For this event, Dr Kappes was joined by Dr Renata Pires Yfantouda (PhD Psychology Research Programme, 2005), Head of Psychological Services at the Guys and St. Thomas NHS Trust; Lucy Amaladoss (BSc Psychology with Child Development and Integrated Professional Training, 2019), Trainee Educational and Child Psychologist at University College London; and Muhammad Anwar (BSc Psychology with Integrated Professional Training, 2021), Psychological wellbeing practitioner in Central Northwest London NHS, on the panel.

In his introduction, Dr Kappes spoke about how the event is about bringing back alumni to the University, forming stronger bonds with alumni, and thinking about interesting topics. He went on to talk about how there is currently a mental health crisis, and according to the WHO, around 1 billion people have a mental health disorder.

“There is a lot of excitement that AI might help with mental health. There is no way we can educate enough psychologists to deal with the current global mental health crisis, so we need to find alternative ways. I think that the pandemic itself changed a lot of things in general and within therapy, and it made things less taboo. In many ways, it was a breakout moment for mental healthcare.”

Dr Kappes also spoke about the long history of chatbots functioning as therapists, with the first, which was called Eliza, being launched in 1964. In a recent npj Mental Health Research study, it was also shown that Replika, an AI chatbot powered by Open AI’s GPT-3, helped reduce loneliness in a cohort of students, and it also aided suicide prevention.

Debating the merits and pitfalls of AI

The panel discussion then raised several important points, and Dr Pires Yfantouda asked about the information, clinical governance and legal framework for the advice offered by AI. She also raised concerns around the parity of access, especially in relation to health services within a public domain, as some minority groups may potentially lack the means to access AI.

“There are some great benefits as AI is accessible and cheaper, but it also has the potential to create harm. My concern is when it gets into substituting humans for machines. Therapy is about empowering people, and it’s not always healthy to have a 24/7 relationship as this can build unrealistic expectations of therapy,” said Dr Pires Yfantouda.

Muhammad then spoke about the interesting shifts that have occurred during the pandemic in terms of healthcare, and the role of talking therapies within Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) in the NHS.

He said that people have different preferences for the delivery of therapy, but that the NHS has been using Limbic, an AI chatbot. He also said he felt that AI could help overcome stigma, and give people that initial push to speak to someone. Muhammad then touched on the potential benefits for neurologically diverse people, as some service users prefer to put things into words in a digital form if speaking is difficult.

Adolescent opportunities and issues

Towards the end of the discussion, Lucy raised the opportunities that exist to use AI with children given the stretched nature of childhood and adolescent services. But while AI could help increase access, she said that there are potential safeguarding issues for children, and that a lot of therapy is about human relationships and picking up on subtle visual cues. However, she did say there are benefits in terms of people’s openness in the online space.

“We won’t be able to escape AI, but it’s about how we adapt as professionals and practitioners,” added Lucy.

The panel discussion was then followed by a lively Q&A session with the audience.