AI Therapy (Part 2): Should it be done?

Join us on Feb 4th 12-1pm PT to hear from Drs. Zac Imel, Vaile Wright, Elizabeth Van Voorhees and Debra Kaysen about the ethical and philosophical implications of LLM-based therapy. 

AI Therapy: Should it be Done?

Last month, we held part 1 of the two-part series on the implications of LLM technology for mental health treatment, entitled “AI Therapy: Can it be Done?”. Drs. John Torous, Betsy Stade, and Andrew Schwartz discussed whether LLM-based tools and generative AI more broadly has the capacity to emulate psychotherapy, including necessary elements and current capabilities.

For part 2 of this series (AI Therapy: Should it be Done?), we are reconvening with a panel to consider the ethical and philosophical implications of LLM-based therapy. Create co-Director Shannon Wiltsey Stirman and panelists Zac Imel, Vaile Wright, Elizabeth Van Voorhees and Debra Kaysen will discuss questions related to the therapy process, access to care, issues which might lend themselves to LLM intervention or support versus psychotherapy, as well as considerations such as case conceptualization, assessment of change over time, risk assessment, management and escalation, the therapeutic relationship, and client/ consumer expectancies and engagement with LLMs vs. therapists.

About the speakers:  

Dr. Zac Imel: Zac Imel, PhD is Co-founder and Chief Science Officer at Lyssn.io, a technology company focused on using artificial intelligence to assess and improve behavioral health. He is also Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Utah. He is co-author of the psychotherapy text, The Great Psychotherapy Debate, which offers a comprehensive review of the evidence for the effectiveness of psychotherapy. 

Dr. Vaile Wright: Vaile Wright, PhD is the Senior Director of the Office of Health Care Innovation in the Practice Directorate at the American Psychological Association. Her department focuses on developing strategies to leverage technology and data to address issues within health care including improving access, measuring care, and optimizing treatment delivery at both the individual and system levels.

Dr. Elizabeth Van Voorhees: Elizabeth Van Voorhees, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Psychiatry and Behavioral Health Sciences department at Duke University School of Medicine. Her research interests are in integrating mHealth applications and sensor technology into the therapeutic process; sex/gender differences in the experience, expression, and treatment of anger and aggression associated with trauma; and “moral injury” associated with trauma.   

Dr. Debra Kaysen: Debra Kaysen, PhD is a professor in the department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Chief of Public Mental Health and Population Sciences at Stanford University. Dr. Kaysen’s area of specialty both in research and clinical work is in treatment for those who have experienced traumatic events including treatment of PTSD and related disorders.

Moderator

Shannon Wiltsey Stirman, PhD is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford and a Psychologist at the National Center for PTSD's Dissemination and Training Division. She is the co-Director of Stanford's CREATE Center. Areas of research emphasis include implementation science (particularly training, fidelity, adaptation and sustainment), evidence-based treatment for PTSD, depression, suicide prevention, and use of technology to support access to evidence-based mental health interventions. As a co-lead of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science's Mental Health Innovation and Technology Hub, she worked with a team at Stanford to develop Pause a Moment, a digital wellbeing program for healthcare workers who experience COVID-19 stressors (pam.stanford.edu). Most recently, she has been working on the use of Large Language Models to support evidence-based mental health interventions. She serves on the leadership committee of Stanford's AI for Mental Health Initiative.

CME credits: You may be eligible to receive CME credits for attending this webinar. More information will be provided at the start of the event. If you have questions, please reach out to CREATE (create-alacrity-center@stanford.edu).

Recording: This event will be recorded. The recording will be posted on Vimeo and shared on LinkedIn and with our CREATE community.