APA Survey: 39 Percent of Psychologists Report Patients Using AI for Self-Diagnosis

An American Psychological Association survey released June 16 found that 39 percent of psychologists have had conversations with patients who used AI to self-diagnose. com reported. AI tools can automate scheduling, send appointment reminders, improve communication efficiency and summarize health records, according to the APA.

California-based psychologist Dr. Zachary Ginder said many people turn to AI as a first-line intervention because it is low-friction, instantly available from a personal device, seemingly private and offered at little to no cost. Cato Institute Research Fellow Adam Omary said AI is cheap, knowledgeable, personalized and engaging, and that it saw faster adoption than any other technology in human history.

He added that AI can incorporate the best available psychology research, be personalized to a user’s preferences and maintain superhuman familiarity with topics or cultural contexts. Ginder advised against using general large language models such as ChatGPT or Claude for specific clinical treatment questions or counseling via chatbot.

He noted that even some direct-to-consumer chatbots advertised as mental health apps are not clinically validated.

Omary said AI may be biased by its training data and that it is necessary to be selective about what information it is trained on, because even much of psychology research has proven unreplicable. He stated that in-person therapy is not going anywhere and that AI’s low cost and wide accessibility could make it beneficial and additive to the existing mental health care industry.

Some AI chatbots exhibit heightened stigma toward conditions such as alcohol dependence and schizophrenia compared with depression, according to Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered AI.