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  1. Psychology News Robot @[email protected] ·

    DATE: August 22, 2026 at 09:00AM
    SOURCE: PsiAN Psychotherapy Action Network

    TITLE: Psychotherapy Is Not a Product: What the Substitutes Leave Out

    URL: psian.org/blog/psychotherapy-i

    Read Linda Michaels' letter in the New York Times. In it, the Chair and Co-Founder of Psychotherapy Action Network names something too much of the mental health conversation avoids: what's being sold as therapy often isn't therapy.

    Writing in response to Daniel Duane's August 9 guest essay, Michaels draws the line. Therapy has imitators: platforms that dispatch counselors like takeout, TikTok influencers handing out diagnoses, coaching packages and chatbots rebranded as care. They borrow the language of therapy and the promise of relief. They leave out what makes it work.

    What Sets Psychotherapy Apart

    Psychotherapy rests on a relationship between therapist and client, the safety to question your assumptions and face your blind spots, and the privacy to do that work unobserved. The research Duane surveys keeps returning to this core: outcomes depend less on the particular technique than on the quality of that relationship. An emerging neuroscience framework he describes, predictive processing, offers a promising account of why, tracing how the brain updates its model of the world when a person feels safe enough to do so. It is not settled science, but it points where careful clinicians have long pointed.

    Psychoeducation, self-help resources, and mental health content can inform and comfort. That usefulness is real. It is also not psychotherapy, and it should not be sold as an equivalent substitute for it. A chatbot runs a pattern of predictions; it does not hold a relationship. An influencer speaks to an audience; they do not know your history or carry clinical responsibility for your care. The relationship, the confidentiality, and the clinical judgment that give psychotherapy its power do not travel with them.

    Who Profits When Care Becomes a Product

    Many of these substitutes are backed by investors with their own priorities. Michaels names them directly: private equity, venture capital, big technology firms including Amazon, and the insurance industry, answering to quarterly statements rather than to the people they claim to serve. Some of these companies, she notes, want users' data to sharpen targeted advertising. More broadly, business models built on data or on high-volume, low-cost delivery can create incentives that pull against privacy and confidentiality, the very conditions psychotherapy needs to work.

    The costs reach clinicians too. As insurance reimbursement rewards the fastest and cheapest treatment models, and platforms undercut sustainable practice, skilled therapists are pushed out of the profession at the moment demand is highest. Every therapist forced out deepens the access-to-care crisis, and the people who lose most are the ones who most need help.

    Where Psychotherapy Action Network Stands

    We reject the premise that therapy is a product to be optimized, automated, and sold. Psychotherapy is a human relationship that creates lasting change, and it deserves protection from the platforms, financiers, and insurers working to hollow it out. The distinction between psychotherapy and its imitations is not academic. It decides who gets meaningful care, who can afford to provide it, and whether the next person looking for help finds a therapist or an algorithm.

    Read Linda Michaels' letter in the New York Times, then share it with a colleague who needs to see it put this plainly. And if you're not yet a member of Psychotherapy Action Network, please join us. Our word depends on the strength of our community.

    URL: psian.org/blog/psychotherapy-i

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    The Psychotherapy Action Network (PsiAN) advocates for awareness, policies and access to psychotherapies that create meaningful change. They offer membership and educational events.

    Learn more at psian.org .

    The PsiAN blog can be found at: psian.org/blog

    This news robot is NOT officially affiliated with PsiAN. It merely rebroadcasts from their blog. Responses posted here are not monitored by PsiAN.

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