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#therapy

21 posts20 participants0 posts today

Utah Ex-Therapist Scott Owen Sentenced to Prison for Sexually Abusing Patients

Owen’s 15-year-to-life prison term follows a 2023 investigation by The Salt Lake Tribune and ProPublica that uncovered a range of sex abuse allegations against the ex-therapist, who claimed to be a specialist for struggling gay Latter-day Saints men.
propublica.org/article/scott-o

ProPublicaUtah Ex-Therapist Scott Owen Sentenced to Prison for Sexually Abusing Patients
More from ProPublica
#News#Utah#Therapy

"Now consider the chatbot therapist: what are its privacy safeguards? Well, the companies may make some promises about what they will and won't do with the transcripts of your AI sessions, but they are lying. Of course they're lying! AI companies lie about what their technology can do (of course). They lie about what their technologies will do. They lie about money. But most of all, they lie about data.

There is no subject on which AI companies have been more consistently, flagrantly, grotesquely dishonest than training data. When it comes to getting more data, AI companies will lie, cheat and steal in ways that would seem hacky if you wrote them into fiction, like they were pulp-novel dope fiends:
(...)
But it's not just people struggling with their mental health who shouldn't be sharing sensitive data with chatbots – it's everyone. All those business applications that AI companies are pushing, the kind where you entrust an AI with your firm's most commercially sensitive data? Are you crazy? These companies will not only leak that data, they'll sell it to your competition. Hell, Microsoft already does this with Office365 analytics:
(...)
These companies lie all the time about everything, but the thing they lie most about is how they handle sensitive data. It's wild that anyone has to be reminded of this. Letting AI companies handle your sensitive data is like turning arsonists loose in your library with a can of gasoline, a book of matches, and a pinky-promise that this time, they won't set anything on fire."

pluralistic.net/2025/04/01/doc

pluralistic.netPluralistic: Anyone who trusts an AI therapist needs their head examined (01 Apr 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

"Most #AI #therapy chatbots are not currently regulated. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has only approved one AI-based mental health app to treat major #depression in adults. Without regulations, there's no way to safeguard against misuse, lack of reporting, or inequity in training data or user access.

"There are so many open questions that haven't been answered or clearly articulated," said Moore. "We're not advocating for this technology to be nixed. We're not saying get rid of AI or therapy bots. We're saying we need to be thoughtful in how we use them, particularly when it comes to a population like children and their mental health care."
sciencedaily.com/releases/2025

ScienceDailyMy robot therapist: The ethics of AI mental health chatbots for kidsAI mental health apps may offer a cheap and accessible way to fill the gaps in the overstretched U.S. mental health care system, but ethics experts warn that we need to be thoughtful about how we use them, especially with children.

Today I "safeworded" on a therapy topic.

We came up against something, examined it a bit, and then I went "Nope, I am not in a place where I can handle dismantling this particular core personality/coping mechanism."

"Ma'am, that is a load bearing trauma response" was literally, actually, what I told her. lolsob.

New Utah Law Seeks to Crack Down on Life Coaches Offering Therapy Without a License

Some therapists who lose their licenses transition to the unregulated life coaching industry, an investigation by The Salt Lake Tribune and ProPublica found. A new law makes it clear that only licensed therapists can provide mental health treatment.
propublica.org/article/utah-li

ProPublicaNew Utah Law Seeks to Crack Down on Life Coaches Offering Therapy Without a License
More from ProPublica

I wrote a thing, for venting, therapy, sanity. I did it on a blog thing I use to write stuff down so I can get it straight in my head. Everyone knows the rules of Therapy right?

1. Don't talk about therapy (cliche reference to fight club in case its not obvious)
2. It might get worse before it gets better.

Well, rule 2 is as always 100% accurate

thebitbetweenblog.wordpress.co

The Bit Between · Between therapy and resolutionTherapy is great. You discuss your thoughts and problems with a trained professional. Over time, you build trust, and via their prompts you start to make sense of yourself and see where you can mak…