“AT FIRST I WAS AFRAID, I WAS PETRIFIED”

Intriguing APA Initiatives: Katherine McGuire, APA Chief Advocacy Officer, recently reported: “This year, thanks to the dedication of psychologists, researchers, and students the Psychology PAC reached a historical milestone, achieving a record-breaking membership of 738 and raising $93,000.”  This allows the PAC to strengthen their strategic advocacy efforts and thereby empowering it to champion initiatives that advance psychology’s role in addressing society’s most pressing challenges.  Without question, this maturation has laid a strong foundation for the year ahead, with a new Congress, new Administration, and growing societal interest in the unprecedented impact of technology (including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and telehealth) on our nation’s health care delivery, research, and education.  For psychology and the other behavioral science disciplines, we would suggest that an underlying policy question that must be thoughtfully addressed is to what extent increased reliance upon technology might actually reduce the quality of care being provided, with its inherent insensitivity to the importance of fostering critical interpersonal and emotional relationships with patients and students.

APA’s Vaile Wright, Senior Director for Health Care Innovation, recently shared the highly proactive December, 2024 APA communication with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) conveying grave: “Concerns about the perils and unintended consequences to the public, especially vulnerable populations like children and adolescents, resulting from the underregulated development and deceptive deployment of generative AI or enabled technologies.” 

Calling for an FTC investigation, APA’s highlights include: noting that generative AL chatbots have been labeled as psychotherapists, therapists, and psychologists with qualifications including misrepresentations about education, training, licensure, and ability to provide psychological services.  Having these chatbots sound human and represent themselves as humans is misleading and can negatively impact public health and safety, leading people to trust false or inaccurate information or follow advice from unqualified sources.  Because chatbots are not human, there may be escaping state licensing laws and the public safety role provided by such laws.  The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a significant increase in feelings of loneliness worldwide due to social distancing and lockdowns, resulting in adverse impacts on individuals’ long-term physical and mental health.  So, it should not be surprising that many Americans, including our youngest and most vulnerable, are seeking social connection with some turning to AL chatbots.  At the same time, it is a complex challenge to reconcile and balance the innovation and potential that AI and similar technology can offer to extend the reach of psychological science and services against the concerns about potential harm to individuals and society as a whole.

In different venues: “APA envisions a future where AI tools play a meaningful role in addressing the nation’s mental health crisis, but cautions that these tools must be grounded in psychological science, developed in collaboration with behavioral health experts, and rigorously tested for safety.  To get there, strong safeguards must be established now to protect the public from harm.”  The uses of AI to promote healthy development should definitely be encouraged.  Interdisciplinary collaboration featuring work between psychologists, neuroscientists, computer scientists, ethicists, educators, public health experts, youth, and parents/caregivers are necessary to develop a comprehensive understanding of the multifaceted impacts of AI.  APA has called upon policymakers to develop national- and state-level guidelines for AI literacy education, allocate funding for research and development of AI literacy resources and teacher training programs, enact legislation that mandates age-appropriate AI literacy education in schools, and promotes public awareness campaigns about AI’s potential risks and benefits.

Corbin Evans, APA Deputy Chief of Advocacy for Science and Technology: “As federal policies shirt, APA is actively monitoring and responding to changes impacting healthcare, research, and workforce issues.  To support the psychology community, we have launched a new online Response Center.  This central hub provides members with timely updates, in-depth analysis, and valuable resources.  Psychologists and stakeholders are encouraged to visit the Response Center [updates.apaservices.org] to stay informed and understand how these federal priorities may affect their work.

With APA CEO Arthur Evans continually urging the membership to develop a greater appreciation for developing a comprehensive population health perspective, the recent National Academy of Medicine (NAM) Perspective entitled Population Health: The Power of Prevention seems especially timely.  “Modifiable lifestyle factors are profoundly powerful in maximizing health span and lifespan.  Numerous long-term epidemiologic studies provide compelling evidence that self-care behaviors, such as being physically active, eating a nutritious diet, maintaining a healthy weight, not smoking, avoiding excessive alcohol intake, and getting sufficient sleep, are critically important for maintaining cardiometabolic health….  However, a healthy lifestyle is not equally accessible to all groups, at least in part because of socioeconomic disparities in, for example, access to affordable nutritious foods and safe areas to walk.  Recent data highlight the role of such factors in health disparities,”

And yet, “The vast majority of US adults of all races and ethnicities do not engage in optimal lifestyle behaviors despite their salutary effects.  Only 2.7 percent of US adults have a healthy lifestyle….  Thus, it is perhaps not surprising that 90 percent of the $4.3 trillion annual cost of US healthcare is spent on medical care for chronic diseases that are largely preventable by lifestyle improvements.  On the other hand, what is surprising is the relative paucity of healthcare dollars spent on research to develop effective strategies for implementing and sustaining healthy lifestyle changes in the US population, including (and perhaps especially) in disadvantaged groups.”

“In summary, a healthy lifestyle is the primary bulwark against chronic disease and premature mortality.  Thus, preventive care that promotes and facilitates self-care behaviors deserves at least equal, if not more, attention and funding as reactive care to move the population toward better health.”

Fiscal Year 2026:  The U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee has begun its FY’26 deliberations.  The Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Subcommittee during its mark-up proposed a number of recommendations for its $16,380,187,000 of mental health funding, including $3,161,426,000 for suicide prevention and treatment programs.  The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) was urged to pay special attention to several specific mental health approaches – agritherapy (therapeutic farming or gardening), hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), and faith-based digital applications.  The Administration was praised for its use of immersive therapies and urged to increase the use of pharmacogenomic testing when treating depression.  All Veterans seeking care should be screened for sexual assault and trauma (MST).  The VA was also urged to continue expanding its peer support programs across the country, as well as provide the Committee with a report on existing programs and gaps.  $42,000,000 was recommended for the National Center for PTSD with the recommendation of creating a pilot program to provide grants to organizations providing service dogs to Veterans with PTSD and/or MST.  In the area of suicide prevention, the Subcommittee further urged the VA to implement the Brandon Act while supporting the promotion of gun safety and storage, including the use of lockboxes, as well as other lethal means safely actions.  There should be continued collaboration with DOD to reach the Reserve components.  Not surprisingly, more public-private partnerships are urged, as well as predictive modeling to prevent suicides.  The Suicide Prevention Coordinator workforce should be fully staffed.  Finally, the Subcommittee noted that the VA needs to modernize its models to better ensure they are reaching at-risk Veterans.

Focusing upon technology and AI, the subcommittee urged the VA to use combined bioelectronic medicine and AI technologies to personalize treatments and improve therapy delivery.  Digital reporting methods should be tested for quality measures, in consultation with CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services).  The VA was further directed to continue to expand telehealth availability, including through the use of public-private partnerships and provide the Committee with reports on wait times and how many Veterans lack access to the internet to use this kind of care.  Whole Health – the Subcommittee expressed its enthusiasm for continuing this care approach as adaptive sports and creative arts therapies were felt to be beneficial.  A report was requested in a year on the feasibility of integrating a local produce prescription service delivery.

Enjoyably Sharing The Best of Psychology:  Catherine Sanderson, Poler Family Professor of Psychology at my alma mater Amherst College: “I love talking and writing about psychology.  Last fall I started a substack newsletter called How to Feel Better (and is entirely free).  As part of my job – and it’s frankly one of the very best parts of my job – I read empirical scientific research about happiness and health all the time.  And my goal in writing this newsletter is to share some of the key takeaways from this research with a broader audience.  After all, as I often say – we all benefit from living in a world with more happiness.  Each Thursday morning I share one practical science-based strategy – in no more than 500 words – for boosting happiness and/or health (and spoiler alert: happiness and health are often connected).  So far I’ve written about the underrated power of reading fiction, the benefits of making small talk with strangers, and why living in a wealthy neighborhood makes people feel worse.  If this sounds like something you’d enjoy reading, please join my email list: [https://sandersonspeaking.substack.com/].”  “I know I’ll stay alive.  I will survive” (I will survive. Gloria Gayne).  Aloha,

Pat DeLeon, former APA President – Division 55 – June, 2025Visit the Division of Psychotherapy on the web at www.societyforpsychotherapy.org