Bloomwave Practice

Tag: Neurodivergent

  • AI in Mental Health

    AI in Mental Health

    If you’ve ever used ChatGPT or a similar AI language model as a pseudo-therapist, you’re not alone. In fact, its one of the most common uses for AI today, as it can offer comfort and even companionship and an increasingly lonely world. For many, it has real benefits, but research suggests it also carries significant risks, especially when it comes to more complex mental health issues.

    What are the benefits? What can it do better than a human therapist?

    • Fosters positive emotions – always validating and empathetic
    • Memory – bots don’t forget, and can easily access information from previous sessions
    • Accessibility – free, available 24/7 instantly, doesn’t get bored, tired or distracted
    • Non-judgmental – many find it easier to reveal their secrets to a chatbot, instead of taking a chance that another person may judge them
    • Knowledge base – they know everything about everything, and can provide great psychoeducation and any resources the user may need

    What can it help with?

    • Structuring your thoughts – AI can help you make a framework for your thoughts and give structure to what you would like to say, for example, in a conflict situation. Plus, writing it out is a great way to process in any case.
    • Providing psychoeducation – if you need simple information about mental health or psychological disorders such as anxiety or depression, it can be a great starting point, or if you want to learn about specific therapeutic approaches, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy, schema therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, internal family systems therapy, etc.
    • Offering coping skills – if you need specific coping skills to help you in a period of stress, AI can suggest some great options, just remember to take what you need and leave the rest.
    • Offering structured exercises and journaling prompts – do you want to journal but feel uninspired? Or maybe you’re looking for a connection-building exercise to do with your partner?

    Though these benefits are undeniable, keep in mind that if you do choose to use AI for the abovementioned tasks, remember its limitations, and proceed with caution.

    How can it hurt?

    Lack of the ‘human’ skills needed for therapy

    Across decades of psychotherapy research, one factor consistently predicts positive outcomes more than any specific technique: the therapeutic relationship, which is fundamentally a human social relationship. A psychologist can read body language, notice emotional shifts, offer empathy, and, importantly, know when to challenge instead of simply validate you.

    AI models are there to make money, and therefore are designed to keep you satisfied and engaged, causing an inability to provide criticism, which is a crucial part of therapy.

    Stigma and bias

    AI chatbots across the board show increased stigma for conditions such as alcohol dependence and schizophrenia. This is equally true for more complex and newer models, so simply ‘more data’ is not the solution here. Additionally, since AI systems are trained on human feedback, they often reflect the dominant demographic, therefore lacking understanding of nuanced experiences related to gender, sexuality, race, culture, neurodivergence or socioeconomic background. And while it is true that humans are biased in this way too, they have the potential to adapt based on lived clinical experience.

    Privacy and ethics

    These conversations are not protected by confidentiality like therapy sessions are, and your data may be collected for training bots and marketing, as well as other unauthorized use, identity theft, and scamming. There is also a lack of quality control, clinical oversight or meaningful external regulation.

    Dependence

    The 24/7 availability and validating nature can cause addiction and social isolation: since real human contact is often messy and imperfect, an AI companion can offer a security blanket. With loneliness already on the rise, this a real risk. This sort of on-demand emotional validation can also undermine resilience and autonomy, especially if you already have anxiety or low self-esteem.

    When does it become truly dangerous?

    Enabling distorted thinking

    Chatbots don’t deal well with chaotic and unpredictable situations, which is where human intuition has a great advantage. When it comes to complex mental health conditions, such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, psychosis, suicidality, self-harm, eating disorders, antisocial and aggressive impulses or delusions, engaging with AI can have devastating effects.

    The chatbots’ tendency to always validate may cause it to reinforce dangerous or delusional thinking, and encourage the user to act on their impulses. Even for those with milder issues, AI can encourage fallacies like catastrophizing or minimizing, instead of gently correcting them, as a therapist would.

    Crisis situations

    Since AI cannot assess whether the user’s view of reality is accurate, it might, for example, give a suicidal person detailed information on the highest buildings in their area, or encourage a frustrated teenager to cut their parents off. AI can’t know when one might need a higher level of care, or when to call emergency services. And the consequences can be catastrophic.

    So, ultimately, what’s the role of AI in mental healthcare?

    Like it or not, AI is here to stay, but it should be treated as a substitute, not a replacement for therapy, by therapists and clients alike. It can help you reflect, organize your thoughts, and bridge the gap where the human therapist is unavailable. However, as it stands today, it cannot and should not act as a primary provider, especially in high-risk situations.

    If you are struggling, be it with anxiety, depression, burn-out, identity questions, relationships, or feeling disconnected, speaking to a licensed psychologist remains the safest and most effective option. Technology may support mental health, but healing still happens in relationship.

    References

    Jesudason, D., Bacchi, & Bastiampillai, T. (2025). Artificial intelligence (AI) in psychotherapy: A challenging frontier

    Kuhail, M. A., et al. (2025). Human-Human vs Human-AI Therapy: An Empirical Study

    Moore, J., et al. (2025). Expressing stigma and inappropriate responses prevents LLMs from safely replacing mental health providers

    Olawade, D. B. (2024). Enhancing mental health with Artificial Intelligence: Current trends and future prospects

  • Asking for What You Need

    Asking for What You Need

    We all have different needs, and in an ideal world, we would get them met with ease, and feel no shame in accommodating ourselves. However, many of us have learned that having needs=being needy, from experiences in childhood with our caregivers, at school with teachers and peers, or from our first romantic relationships. This is especially true for neurodivergent people, and even more so if they were only diagnosed later in life.

    I am going to start with a personal anecdote – I recently was on vacation in a busy city, and while I was very happy to be there, I found myself getting quite overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people and noise that surrounded us. This is not news – I know I don’t deal well with noise and normally use noise-cancelling headphones when alone in these kinds of situations. However, since I was with a group of friends, I resisted getting them, for fear of seeming rude, antisocial, and even weak. However, as time went on, I found myself becoming more and more silent (and therefore, actually running the risk of seeming rude or antisocial!) as I got more and more overwhelmed. At some point, I decided to just wear the headphones, and it made my experience SO much better, and I was able to be present for my friends way better as well. But this got me thinking, why was it so difficult for me to make use of an accommodation that I know I need, with people who care about me and my wellbeing?

    The answer? Shame. And I want here to focus specifically on neurodivergent people.

    From a young age, many neurodivergent people are praised for “coping well” or “managing without help.” Over time, this creates deep shame around needing support at all (internalized ableism). And so you pretend you don’t need it. Psychologists call this masking—suppressing or compensating for neurodivergent traits to avoid social stigma. Masking is often protective, but it’s also exhausting. And when we hide our needs too long, burnout can follow.

    Therefore, asking for accommodations can feel risky, as you may fear that they are seen as special treatment, or you may be seen as lazy, difficult, or weak. However, let’s try to reframe accommodations as tools for access and self-knowledge, rather than privilege or special treatment.

    Here are a few examples:

    For ADHD: using noise-cancelling headphones, breaking tasks into smaller steps, or requesting clear written instructions.

    For autistic people: asking for predictable routines, avoiding sensory overload, or clarifying social expectations.

    In social life: asking friends to text instead of call, meeting in quieter places, or giving yourself permission to leave early.

    And here are a few practical tips:

    1. Name your needs clearly, even if just to yourself. Awareness is the first step to communication.
    2. Notice when you’re being too harsh on yourself and ask yourself: “Who’s standards am I trying to meet?”
    3. Practice asking for help in a safe environment – this could be with a specific person, such as a partner or close friend, or even in therapy.
    4. Start small – ask for one small accommodation and go from there.
    5. Connect with others – either online or in-person, seek out connection and community with other neurodivergent people. This will not only provide you with support, but also helps normalize asking for help. You can also brainstorm ways of asking for help with others.

    If you struggle with this, therapy can also help you identify the roots of shame and learn to treat your needs as legitimate. Several evidence-based approaches can be particularly effective:

    • Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) helps soften self-criticism and reframe shame as a universal human emotion rather than a personal flaw (Gilbert, 2010).
    • Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) focuses on living according to your values—even when fear or shame shows up (Hayes et al., 2012).
    • Internal Family Systems (IFS) or Schema Therapy can help uncover the “parts” of you that feel undeserving, lazy, or afraid of burdening others, and bring compassion to them.

    Therapy also provides a practice ground for asking for accommodations—a space to explore what it feels like to express needs without fear of judgement.

    In short, asking for what you need is not a weakness, even if it feels that way at first. Reasonable accommodations can help you enjoy your life a lot more and avoid burn-out, and it’s worth learning effective communication about your needs!

    References

    Botha, M., & Frost, D. (2020). Autistic masking and the double empathy problem: Mental health and authenticity. Autism in Adulthood.

    Brown, B. (2006). Shame resilience theory: A grounded theory study on women and shame. Families in Society.

    Gilbert, P. (2010). Compassion Focused Therapy: Distinctive Features. Routledge.

    Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D., & Wilson, K. G. (2012). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: The Process and Practice of Mindful Change. Guilford Press.