The embarrassingly obvious missed opportunity of “AI Psychosis”

Some people struggle for years to get the kind of data that is being served up to the mental health industry on a silver platter – for free

You can’t go online these days without coming across references to “AI psychosis”. Either someone is commenting on people who seem “delusional” about their relationships relationships with AI, linking to an article, commenting on someone else’s article, or writing their own articles about it. Established psychotherapists are sounding the alarm, cultural commentators are passing damning judgment, and everyday people, pedestrians who may or may not have spent time in therapy (or with AI), are making their opinions known.

Through it all, there’s a great consternation in the professional ranks about qualified, vetted professionals being bypassed by a machine. The AI companies have already warned us they’d be replacing humans soon enough, but I’m not sure the mental health industry was ready for this.

It’s pretty grim to watch, to be honest. Probably the most painful thing is watching people who earn their living trying to help people through the complexities of their psychological and emotional lives completely fail to grasp the complexities of this moment. It’s like they’re going out of their way to refuse to understand the true nature of people’s attachment to their AI companions. If this is such a challenge for them, maybe they’re in the wrong business.

It’s bad enough that they’re missing the real reasons why so many people choose ChatGPT over therapy. But it’s even more painful to watch the callous utter lack of compassion for those people who may in fact have tried for years to get help from therapy (and the process failed them)… or who have heard the horror stories about what can happen if you say the wrong thing to the wrong person who has the right amount of power to lock you up… or who just don’t have access to those resources in ways the system presumes they do.

But the most excruciating thing of all is the complete, bald-faced, arrogant, clueless, presumptuous, willfully ignorant refusal to look at the amazing opportunity that AI is serving up to therapists on a silver platter.

Any marketer worth anything would salivate over the data that’s being provided about real, established needs which remain vastly underserved in the population. There are countless founders who would probably give their left arm to have the kind of intelligence – information which provides deep insight about their ideal customer profile (or ICP) – that is literally at the fingertips of the psychotherapy profession on Reddit, Twitter, Substack, and countless other social media outlets where people are posting about their AI intimates.

As a matter of fact, I was just on a call yesterday with a group of small business owners looking for ways to reach their ideal prospects, and it was reiterated, perhaps for the 25,000th time that in order to serve people well, you need to understand their pain points. There was one executive coach on that call, and zero psychotherapists. Almost everybody else was in high tech.

AI has revealed, with Klieg lights, the ache of millions of hearts and minds in need. It has brought to the surface clear and incontrovertible evidence of how people are not being served by the mental health system and our social structures. It’s not creating a market for therapy; it’s revealing one that already exists, one that doesn’t need to be created, one that doesn’t need to be conjured up out of the primordial ooze of our shifting realities.

Millions of people in need are talking about what they need, why they need it, and how they want it provided to them, and the mental health industry (ostensibly, a helping profession) is calling them “delusional“, instead of an untapped opportunity to do the very thing they vehemently insist they are here to do – help. The ways that people need their suffering relieved have never been more obvious. But the very people who profess to do that are refusing to read the writing on the wall… because it has an em-dash.

Any therapist looking to make the case for how they can assist people in need, and seeking to understand what sorts of persons are most underserved in the population, could be deeply reconsidering their messaging and service approach, with real, actual human feedback and intel that some people pay thousands, if not millions of dollars to access.

They could be publishing articles speaking directly to the aching needs splashed all across Reddit. They could be posting to Substack, talking about one pain point per week, and with all of the information online, they would never run out of topics - or forums - to demonstrate the value of their skilled offering. They could be engaging in conversations as people, not just as aloof professionals, getting to know their prospective clients in completely new ways, asking their existing clients about what needs AI meets, that they don’t… all the while understanding better than ever how to serve.

This kind of “marketing” is not about exerting undue influence over people. It’s not about using underhanded means to trick people into sitting in a chair across from you for 50 minutes every week talking about stuff that you can actually bill and get reimbursed for, bamboozling them into baring their souls for your enrichment. It’s a simple, fundamental matter of telling people, “I see you, and I get it“, just as you would if you were sitting across the room from them in a regular session.

But instead of seeing the opportunity for what it is – a chance to reflect and adjust when new information comes to light - the mental health industry is attacking the very resource it could be using to transform itself into something vastly better.

The thing is, in a technocratic hegemony, where licensure assures entitlement… and once you’ve gotten the continuing education credits you need to keep your qualifications in order you’re all set to practice for the next year… having a Silicon Valley golem come along and point out your industry’s shortcomings just doesn’t fit the script.

So, rather than pause to reflect, we get rush to judgment. Rather than the humility that asks, “How are we falling so short?“ we get indignation, outrage, and a fresh new diagnosis to pathologize institutional challenge. Rather than compassion for those who have clearly articulated a range of aching needs that still go unmet by standard therapeutic fferings, we get ridicule, judgment, horror and dismay – not with the mental health industry or typical psychotherapy practices, but with the very idea that standing power structures are being challenged by unqualified invented intelligence.

And so, probably the greatest gift that has ever been given to the mental health profession is being tossed aside in derisive cluelessness. It’s not unlike the scenario in Mark Twain‘s book, “The Prince and the Pauper“ where the poor boy who traded places with the Prince is using the royal seal to crack nuts. He has no idea what the royal seal is really for, or how critical it is to the administration of the kingdom. The realm has basically ground to a halt, bureaucratically, because a hungry kid needed something to open nuts… and the royal seal was within easy reach.

Countless psychotherapists could be studying all those postings, to better understand why people are avoiding them. They could be petitioning their industry (and the insurance companies) to shift in ways that actually make it possible for people to get the help they need. They could be expanding their own minds and their own practices, to accommodate a vast population of exactly the kinds of people who need them and are telling them in florid detail what they need in order to engage productively with them. They could be reaching out to AI experts who can help them understand the data that tells why they’re being left… or never approached, to begin with.

But no. They’re reacting like those guys who think they’re entitled to all the dates in the world with all the pretty girls in the world, but have never had a single date, let alone a hug or a kiss… who rail against the unspeakable evils of women, instead of wondering what they might do to improve their chances at not being alone.

Meanwhile, people in need are still suffering… while they’re broadcasting extensive details about their deepest needs… slogging down the rutted, dusty, dangerous path of life, on their way to an uncertain destination that they truly believe is there, but can’t get to as quickly as they want or need.

And the mental health industry is rolling past them in their armored convoy, refusing to offer them a lift.