Digital Therapists
Innovation at the Intersection of Technology and Wellness
Summary
The topic of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is everywhere these days, but it's hard to know where it's just a buzzword, and where there is substance. Does AI really apply to everything including the sensitive area of Mental Health? This two-hour workshop will begin with the history of mental health chatbots and smartphone apps, recognizing that the digital world has come to mental health, whether therapists are ready for it or not. Areas for positive use of generative AI will be explored and demonstrated, so that even newbies to the world of AI will walk away with at least a couple of new tools that they can use. However, there are also many potential challenges inherent to the use of AI in the field of mental health, and these will also be explored and discussed in depth, both by the speaker and through audience participation. AI for mental health is here, whether mental health professionals consider themselves ready for it or not, so one might as well be educated about this complex topic in order to engage with it thoughtfully and ethically.
Presenter
Sonja V. Batten, PhD is a licensed clinical psychologist with over twenty five years of experience in veteran mental health. She has worked across the federal government, nonprofit, academic, and private sectors, overseeing program development and evaluation, providing direct clinical services and conducting research. Her specialty areas are traumatic stress and suicide prevention, and she has overseen multiple, large-scale national public health and mental health awareness campaigns. She has also worked on multidisciplinary mental health and IT teams developing technological innovations to advance mental health, such as the VA/DoD PTSD Coach app and Stop Soldier Suicide's Black Box Project. She was previously the senior psychological health adviser at Booz Allen Hamilton and oversaw national mental health policy at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Dr. Batten was the first deputy director of the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury and first associate director for women’s health research at Yale University School of Medicine. While leading the VA Maryland Health Care System’s outpatient and residential PTSD programs, she established its first mental health outreach and clinical program for veterans who were beginning to return from Iraq and Afghanistan. Dr. Batten has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Nevada, Reno, and received specialized training at the National Center for PTSD and National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center.
Learning Objectives
By attending this training, participants will be able to:
- Describe the history of chatbots in mental health.
- Identify at least two possible areas where generative AI could already be useful in mental health practice.
- Describe at least three potential ethical challenges with the use of AI in mental health settings.
Continuing Education
Co-Sponsors. This event is co-sponsored by Psychology Specialists of Maine (PSM) and the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS). The Association for Contextual Behavioral Science is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The Association for Contextual Behavioral Science maintains responsibility for this program and its content. This program is approved for 2 CEs. CEs are awarded contingent on timely post-event paperwork submission by event organizers (PSM).