{"id":352801,"date":"2025-12-16T21:14:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T21:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/352801\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T21:14:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T21:14:13","slug":"children-need-mental-health-care-provided-by-humans-not-chatbots-mental-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/352801\/","title":{"rendered":"Children need mental health care provided by humans, not chatbots | Mental health"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">It is absolutely right that children \u201cneed a human, not a bot\u201d for mental health support (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2025\/dec\/09\/teenagers-ai-chatbots-mental-health-support\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u2018I feel it\u2019s a friend\u2019: quarter of teenagers turn to AI chatbots for mental health support, 9 December<\/a>). Overuse of AI for mental health support could well lead to the next public health emergency if the government does\u00a0not take urgent action.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">We shouldn\u2019t be surprised that teenagers are turning to tools such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/chatgpt\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ChatGPT<\/a> in this way. NHS waiting lists are rising, and one in five young people are living with a mental health condition. It is unacceptable that young people who require support for their mental health are unable to access the services they need, before they reach crisis point.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">AI cannot replace the vital human element in mental health care. It does offer many benefits, but it should be thoughtfully integrated to support human therapist-led care.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The government must take note of this stark warning and commit to expanding the mental health workforce to ensure that teenagers who are struggling can access timely, in-person support before the potential consequences are felt\u00a0by the next generation. <br \/>Dr Roman Raczka<br \/>British Psychological Society<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\"> Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/society\/2025\/dec\/15\/mailto:guardian.letters@theguardian.com?body=Please%20include%20your%20name,%20full%20postal%20address%20and%20phone%20number%20with%20your%20letter%20below.%20Letters%20are%20usually%20published%20with%20the%20author%27s%20name%20and%20city\/town\/village.%20The%20rest%20of%20the%20information%20is%20for%20verification%20only%20and%20to%20contact%20you%20where%20necessary.\" data-link-name=\"in body link \" https:=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">email<\/a> us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/tone\/letters\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">letters<\/a> section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is absolutely right that children \u201cneed a human, not a bot\u201d for mental health support (\u2018I feel&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260],"class_list":{"0":"post-352801","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}