PsiAN supports tools and technologies when they increase access to quality care of lasting benefit, but we are concerned with profit-driven apps, websites and platforms seeking revenue by discarding the therapeutic relationship, violating standards of professional practice ethics, and putting their commercial interests ahead of the best interests of patients.

A great new article by Linda Michaels, our Chair and Co-Founder, What People Need and Want from Therapy: Advancing Access to Quality Care. Linda brings PsiAN's market research to a general audience, highlighting key results that support therapies of depth, insight and relationship.

We have published our position paper on mental health apps and technology and launched our Push Back on Apps campaign.

PsiAN penned a letter and petition with nearly 2,500 signatures to the Federal Trade Committee (FTC) and the Attorneys General of New York, Illinois, and California to object to the misleading business practices of CareDash.com (now defunct).

The hit HBO show, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, took on the complex issues of mental healthcare. Oliver’s producers interviewed our Chair and Co-Founder, Linda Michaels, and Advisors.

PsiAN has concerns about Talkspace as a company, and the category of apps and asynchronous texting positioned as psychotherapy. Lionda Michaels talks about Kara Swisher’s interview of Oren Frank, CEO of Talkspace, on the July 22, 2021, in an episode of her podcast Sway.

Dr. Reidbord, a San Francisco psychiatrist, and editor of the Forum, discusses how psychotherapy training programs never advise students to “fake sincerity.”  Therapies of depth, insight, and relationship are founded on genuine human connection, which can’t be duplicated with AI.

PsiAN was featured in The New York Times, in an article on therapy bots. PsiAN co-chair, Linda Michaels, was quoted in a NYT article on Woebot, a therapy app that uses AI to deliver CBT-style interventions.

Irene Yancher, PsyD, a San Francisco-based clinical psychologist talks about how Lyra Health limits Access to high-quality treatments for their own benefit by raising money to connect employees of companies, such as Facebook, to mental health treatment. We cannot allow the financial interests of one startup to denigrate high-quality treatments and to limit patients to brief therapies that may not work for them.

In response to a New York Times article on bringing “retail therapy” to the masses, PsiAN’s co-chairs wrote a letter arguing that drugstore therapy is the wrong approach.

Keith R Wilson, a counselor in private practice in Rochester, NY, talks about how farming has changed into big business much like mental health. They say industrial medicine gives the public more access to better care, but he discussed how it reduces patients to quantifiable symptoms and healthcare workers into unthinking and unfeeling machinery.

PsiAN was recently featured in The Atlantic, in an article about “therapy” Apps.

PsiAN was recently featured in The New York Times, in an article about Talkspace.

Here is PsiAN’s statement on telehealth coverage and the policy, insurance, and licensing changes that need to occur so that people can continue to access care, even after some of the emergency orders expire.

Tele-Therapy Session Guidelines, outlining ways we can stay aware of the differences of in-person therapy, and adapt to tele-therapy.

Starting in 2022, PsiAN took on the issues of app companies using deceptive practices and functioning as advertising vehicles.