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Use a general-purpose AI chatbot as a limited aid for organizing thoughts or preparing for a conversation with a professional—not as a therapist, diagnostic service, or crisis responder. Its warm tone and confident answers do not establish that it understands your circumstances or can assess risk. Verify mental-health advice with a qualified professional, share as little sensitive information as possible, and seek live human help in a crisis.
What can an AI chatbot safely help with?
A chatbot may be useful for low-stakes preparation: turning your own notes into a clearer summary, listing questions to ask a licensed mental-health professional, or rehearsing an exercise you have already learned in treatment. These are support tasks, not clinical decisions.
- Reasonable uses: organize thoughts, prepare questions for an appointment, or practice a clinician-taught exercise.
- Do not delegate: diagnosis, treatment decisions, medication changes, or a decision to start, stop, or delay professional care.
- Verify: check suggestions against a qualified professional, especially if they could affect your care or safety.
The American Psychological Association (APA) advises people to approach AI-generated advice thoughtfully: ask for evidence-based strategies, consider more than one option, treat responses critically, and discuss AI use with a clinician. A chatbot’s answer can help you prepare for that discussion; it should not settle it.
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Why shouldn’t you treat a chatbot like a therapist?
The APA’s November 2025 health advisory says there is no consensus in the literature that generative AI chatbots and wellness apps have the qualifications needed for mental-health care, diagnosis, feedback, or even advice in most cases. The World Health Organization (WHO) has also noted that people use generative AI for emotional support even though these tools were not designed or tested for mental health.
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A chatbot may lack the history and context needed to understand what is happening, cannot read nonverbal cues, and may struggle to assess clinical risk or respond with cultural competence. Its conversational fluency is not evidence of clinical understanding. It may affirm a harmful or delusional belief, give inaccurate or dangerous advice, or miss signs that a person needs urgent help.
One limited test illustrates the concern: an analysis of six popular chatbots found that none met clinical standards for responding to simulated mental-health crises. APA says the analysis appeared online in 2026. That result concerns six systems and simulated interactions; it does not establish how every chatbot will respond in every real situation.
A June 2025 Stanford Report also described research presented at ACM FAccT 2025 that identified bias and potentially dangerous responses in mental-health chatbot interactions, including scenarios involving suicidal ideation and delusions. The report is secondary coverage, so it does not by itself establish a rate of harm or justify a numerical claim about chatbot performance.
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In an online U.S. survey conducted April 9–26, 2026, the APA asked more than 1,200 licensed psychologists involved in patient or client care about chatbots and mental health. The percentages below are psychologists’ reports and concerns—not measured rates of chatbot-caused harm among users.
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| APA 2026 survey finding | What psychologists reported |
|---|---|
| Reinforcing negative behavior or delusional beliefs | 97% of surveyed U.S. psychologists said chatbots may inadvertently reinforce negative behaviors or delusional beliefs. |
| Nuance in treating conditions | 94% of surveyed U.S. psychologists said current chatbots cannot treat conditions with an appropriate amount of nuance. |
| Risk of encouraging self-harm | 89% of surveyed U.S. psychologists worried chatbots may inadvertently encourage self-harm. |
| Patients’ use of AI | 77% of surveyed U.S. psychologists reported speaking with patients who had used AI for support, engagement, or other reasons. |
| Protection of private mental-health data | 94% of surveyed U.S. psychologists did not trust technology companies to protect patients’ private mental-health data. |
These figures describe clinicians’ experiences and views. They are not a randomized clinical trial, a comparison of chatbot treatments, or estimates of how often users are harmed.
When should you stop chatting and seek live help?
Do not rely on a chatbot when you may be in immediate danger or need urgent clinical assessment. This includes suicidal thoughts, urges to self-harm, a risk of harming someone else, hallucinations, or strong unusual beliefs. A chatbot cannot reliably assess the situation or provide emergency care.
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In the United States, APA guidance says to call 911, call or text 988, or go to the nearest emergency department for immediate live help. Outside the United States, contact your local emergency number or crisis service. If someone may be in immediate danger, contact emergency services rather than waiting for a chatbot response.
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Is what you tell a chatbot private?
Do not assume a chatbot conversation is confidential in the way you might expect from a clinical relationship. The APA advisory warns that collection and use of sensitive information may be opaque, and that disclosures can face risks of storage, sharing, breaches, or profiling. Data handling differs by service; no general claim about a particular product’s practices follows from those broader risks.
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Before sharing anything personal, review the service’s current privacy terms. Minimize what you disclose: avoid identifying details and leave out information that is not needed for the task. If you would not want the information stored or exposed, do not enter it.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How can you assess a chatbot before using it?
No particular chatbot is recommended here. A wellness label, humanlike style, or reassuring response is not proof of clinical safety. If you are considering a tool for a mental-health-related purpose, look for clear, current information about:
- Purpose and evidence: what the tool is meant to do and whether that purpose has been clinically evaluated.
- Crisis handling: whether it recognizes urgent situations and directs people to appropriate live help, and what limits it discloses.
- Privacy: what it collects, how long it retains information, and whether or how data may be used or shared.
- People it is suitable for: age protections, language and cultural fit, and access to a qualified human when needed.
WHO’s March 2026 account of an expert workshop—not a clinical practice guideline or binding regulation—called for monitoring mental-health effects, co-designing tools with mental-health experts and people with lived experience, culturally appropriate evidence, and crisis-referral and accountability frameworks. Those are useful safeguards to look for, but their presence should not be assumed without product-specific evidence.
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- Choose a bounded task. Ask it to help organize your own notes or draft questions for a professional, rather than asking it to decide what condition you have or what treatment you need.
- Limit the disclosure. Leave out identifying or unnecessary sensitive details, and check the service’s current privacy terms before entering personal information.
- Review the answer critically. Ask for evidence-based options if useful, but remember that a plausible explanation can still be wrong or miss important context.
- Bring consequential suggestions to a qualified professional. Verify advice that could affect your mental health, safety, or care before acting on it.
For diagnosis, treatment, or continuing support, the appropriate next step is access to a qualified human professional—not a more convincing chatbot.
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