Technology is reshaping practice to expand psychology’s reach

[This article is part of the 2025 Trends Report]

As psychologists struggle to meet the nation’s high demand for mental health services, advancements in technology are showing promise as a lifeline to reduce burnout, boost productivity, and increase access to care. Clinicians are taking advantage of digital therapeutics, virtual reality, artificial intelligence (AI), and other innovations to reach more patients, improve outcomes, and reduce their administrative burden.

While these digital resources are appealing, many psychologists are wary of the risks the tech solutions could introduce related to patient safety and privacy. Caution is warranted, but mental health leaders at the forefront of the technology revolution worry that an overly risk-averse approach could harm the public in the long run by preventing access to much-needed care. “This is a health equity issue,” said Vaile Wright, PhD, senior director of health care innovation at APA. “Solving the mental health crisis is going to require multiple solutions, and technology is one of the solutions to address the suffering people are experiencing.”

According to APA’s 2023 Practitioner Pulse Survey, for the third straight year psychologists reported that many patients needed more care and presented with more severe symptoms than in the past. More than half of psychologists in the survey reported that they have no openings for new patients. Digital therapeutics, which provide evidence-based treatments through mobile devices or the web, are among the innovations gaining momentum and have significant potential to expand care and to aid more patients.

In November 2024, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services approved new reimbursement codes that providers can use to bill Medicare for FDA-cleared digital mental health therapies. This change could lead to a transformative shift because commercial insurance companies typically follow Medicare’s lead with new reimbursement codes. “Up to this point, there was not any established way to pay for these products in health care, so this will help many digital therapeutics that are struggling to find more revenue streams and reach patients who could not afford to pay for these products out of pocket,” Wright said.

To increase support for psychologists’ clinical use of digital therapeutics, APA formed a partnership in early 2023 with Big Health, one of the leading developers of these interventions. The company created SleepioRx, which delivers cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) via mobile devices to people who are suffering from chronic insomnia. Patients are guided through an initial sleep assessment, and they receive CBT that addresses their specific sleep difficulties. The company also created DaylightRx, another research-backed digital therapeutic for generalized anxiety disorder. Unlike wellness apps that can help people reduce stress or lose weight, digital therapeutics like SleepioRx and DaylightRx use evidence-based techniques and show meaningful clinical improvements treating a medical condition in randomized controlled trials.

Historically, when digital therapeutics developers pursued U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance for products, they included only physicians with prescription privileges in their labeling, which prevented psychologists from accessing the treatments. But Big Health, which was cofounded by a psychologist, wanted to change that trend by specifying that SleepioRx and DaylightRx could be ordered by psychologists and other licensed health care providers. In August 2024, the FDA granted clearance for both products. “We hope this FDA clearance will be an example for others to follow,” said Jenna Carl, PhD, chief medical officer at Big Health. “It’s critical for developers to consider the range of providers who could access these digital therapies to help patients.”

AI that can tackle administrative tasks is another burgeoning field in health care that is showing promise to help mental health providers reduce the amount of time they must devote to clerical work. There are numerous Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)-compliant AI platforms that can be effective if users are aware of the potential risks, said Elizabeth Stuart, PhD, a pediatric neuropsychologist at Miller Children’s Hospital in California.

Stuart recently started using AI in her clinical practice for note writing, diagnostic clarification, and neuropsychological data interpretation. With platforms such as Mentalycopens in new window, Uphealopens in new window, or Parchmentopens in new window, psychologists can input a variety of information about patients, such as their mental health and medical history, symptoms, previous assessments, and a clinician’s personal assessment. As she uses these tools, Stuart carefully reviews anything created or synthesized by the AI to ensure accuracy and clarity.

She has found that AI can offer diagnostic insights that are not always immediately apparent to the clinician. “There is no way I could think through the entire DSM [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders], but a computer can,” she said. In one of Stuart’s cases, her cognitive bias led her to believe that a patient’s symptoms were related to autism spectrum disorder, but an AI tool also suggested differential diagnoses including obsessive-compulsive disorder and traumatic brain injury (TBI)/concussion. A second interview with the patient’s parents revealed that a mild TBI was to blame for some of the symptoms.

AI platforms can also help mental health providers record therapy sessions and generate therapy notes in the clinician’s preferred format. There are many AI tools that can also help clinicians format their notes to increase the likelihood that they will be reimbursed by insurance companies, said Stuart. Experts advise practitioners to answer some key questions before using a tool.

[Related: Artificial intelligence is impacting the field]

Although AI may seem like a superpower for such tasks, early adopters caution users to beware of errors that can occur. AI platforms can have racial biases and problems with “hallucination,” or making up information about a patient that is not true, said Ayoub Bouguettaya, PhD, a research fellow in biomedical sciences at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. One recent study of AI-generated discharge summaries showed that AI fabricated information about patients up to 9% of the time (Zaretsky, J., et al. JAMA Network Open, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2024opens in new window).

Bouguettaya recently led a study that assessed AI-powered note writing tools catered to mental health practitioners. Most vendors provided comprehensive information about data protection and privacy measures, but little about which data was used to train the model and the techniques to prevent racial biases. Bouguettaya hopes to see psychologists begin to advocate for ethical standards for AI-powered health products at the state and federal levels, such as requirements for product owners to state how AI tools are trained for bias and error correction.

Psychologists are also discovering the benefits of using AI to improve care by helping them communicate with patients and develop patient educational materials more quickly. Stuart, for example, uses platforms such as ChatGPT, which is not HIPAA-compliant but can assist with phrasing, to generate high-quality explanations of complex concepts. Prior to meeting with a patient, Stuart might type the following prompt: “I am a pediatric neuropsychologist. Please come up with an analogy to explain processing speed deficits to a 6-year-old child with cancer who is receiving intrathecal chemotherapy.” In this scenario, ChatGPT described the brain as a busy race car on a racetrack. Processing speed deficits are like sticky patches on the racetrack that make it harder to zoom around and do things quickly on the track. Even though the car might be slower, it will still reach the finish line.

ChatGPT and Perplexity have helped Charmain Jackman, PhD, create outreach emails for her company InnoPsychopens in new window, a directory of providers of color where therapy seekers can connect with therapists and resources. InnoPsych also consults for organizations looking to improve emotional wellness, inclusion, and belonging; AI has helped Jackman tailor marketing emails for human resources executives and other leaders looking for these services. “It might have taken me months to find the time for tasks like this without AI,” Jackman said. “Now I can finish in less than an hour.”

New advancements in tech are also helping clinicians explore creative approaches to improving mental health outcomes. Though the use of computer-generated simulation in the clinical setting is not novel, University College Dublin’s John Francis Leader, PhD, noticed that most studies involving the use of virtual reality (VR) in mental health treatment were narrow in focus, such as with military members with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Leader was eager to create a platform that clinicians could use for a variety of patients and mental health conditions.

In 2021, he launched the Mixed Reality Therapy Projectopens in new window, a free, open-source platform clinicians can download. Patients wear a VR headset or look at a large screen on a wall, and they partner with the therapist to create a therapy room and an experience room that are separated by a door. They can add objects like a chair, lamp, and window to the therapy room, and the experience room can be tailored to a patient’s specific fears or phobias. For someone struggling with social anxiety, the patient might add a group of people talking at a party. Patients can choose when—and whether—to open the door to the experience room. The therapist can ask patients how they are feeling emotionally and physically at different moments and help them practice strategies to overcome their fear (“Mixed Reality Therapy Clinic Design,” IEEE Games, Entertainment, Media Conference, 2018opens in new window).

Leader has seen the mixed reality platform help patients experience a breakthrough that was elusive with traditional therapy. One man struggled with PTSD after being attacked in an alley, and he made shapes in the mixed reality platform that reminded him of feeling trapped in the alley. “Creating the space visually helped him access the feelings in a new way,” Leader said. “I helped him understand the fight or flight stress response his body was having, and he started practicing strategies like breathing to help him feel a sense of control.”

Leader encourages clinicians to experiment with the platform, which can be adapted for a variety of uses including sports psychology, end-of-life care, and neurodiverse patients who might benefit from an active role in therapy.

While it may feel daunting to learn how to incorporate tech innovations into practice, Leader urges psychologists to explore the options now and to view these innovations as powerful tools rather than threats. Psychologists have the potential not only to reach more people but also to provide better care.

“We are in the midst of a technological creative renaissance,” Leader said. “Therapists have their own expertise and patient populations, and they get to decide how to adapt the latest advancements to facilitate healing.”