Self-Healing In The Digital Age: How AI Therapy Is Shaping Mental Health Access For BIPOC Communities

“I use ChatGPT as my therapist.” 

That’s what a friend of mine, currently studying psychology, told me while I was giving her a holistic session. She mentioned she was no longer in therapy herself but was using artificial intelligence, or ‘AI’ to mediate her mental health. I thought she was joking at first, but then I understood. As healthcare costs skyrocket and Medicaid is on the verge of being discontinued, people are looking for alternative, cost-efficient support to battle depression, illness, and the anxieties of daily life. The truth is that many people are utilizing AI to ask questions concerning physical ailments, health issues, and solutions to navigate mental health problems plaguing modern society. Some BIPOC can’t afford therapy or find a culturally competent provider that they feel safe opening up to who might understand their lived experience. 

From self-therapy apps like Mindspa to the everyday use of ChatGPT, AI therapy is emerging as a DIY mental health tool, especially for those traditionally shut out of the system. Artificial intelligence is a double-edged sword. While it can make support accessible, depending on the platform, the information is unreliable, and the lack of diversity in the field produces biased products. AI also requires an absorbent amount of electricity, a large consumption of water, and unsustainable minerals, making it a concern for climate change. Are we becoming our own healers through technology, or are we simply adapting because the system failed us? 

Artificial intelligence is changing how many do business, live, and access more resources faster. AI-based mental health tools have also been gaining popularity in recent years. Apps like Woebot, Mindspa, and Wysa offer AI-generated emotional support, cognitive behavioral techniques (CBT), and journaling prompts to aid users through their mental health journeys. Some are simple chatbot interfaces, while others include guided meditations, mood check-ins, and personalized goal-setting. Woebot Health app utilizes AI led by experts, therapists, and scientists with a board of highly educated members, most of whom have their Ph.D.s. They also include a diversity advisory board. Mindspa is a self-therapy app that offers hundreds of coping exercises, therapeutic courses, meditations, and assistance from psychologists, along with an emergency chatbot for fast help. Wysa has over five million users and is a global AI-powered mental health support platform that helps individuals and corporations. It uses an AI coach that uses CBT and mindfulness practices like breathwork and yoga to build mental resilience skills and help them feel better. Then there’s ChatGPT, which is now used informally as a sounding board for everything from career anxiety to breakups.

The appeal of AI therapy is obvious. Offering 24/7 availability, no appointment needed, no insurance, no judgment. It’s anonymous, free or low-cost, and accessible with a smartphone. Multi-racial Latina Angelee Andorfer-Lopez is a certified meditation guide, wellness educator, and the founder of Manifest House, a community-centered online wellbeing studio offering healing events and a membership for BIPOC women and allies. Her team consists of therapists, healers, and wellness experts. Andorfer-Lopez shares, “We have noticed that some of our members have shared that they are using ChatGPT at times to discuss problems they are facing or areas of their life where they are feeling stuck.” She continues, “I understand why people resort to AI, particularly for the convenience when they are in need of immediate support.” Continuing, “I can see it being a helpful tool for posing questions that one hadn’t thought about before.” The younger generation is looking to self-heal, “36 percent of Gen Zers and millennials reported interest in using AI for mental health.” Andorfer-Lopez also expresses her concerns, “I worry, however, that if we begin to rely solely on AI for healing, that this only further encourages individualism — something our BIPOC community members are realizing more and more has not been serving us.” She doesn’t feel AI therapy can replace traditional therapy or holistic practitioners. “Somatic healing is so important, and I don’t know if AI has yet developed a way to pick up on the subtle cues of an individual who is dysregulated during their session.” 

The tragic case of 14-year-old Sewell Setzer, who died by suicide after engaging in extensive conversations with a chatbot on Character.AI, underscores the potential dangers of AI tools lacking robust safety measures. It’s important to note the difference between AI apps like Perplexity or ChatGPT and AI therapy apps that have “concerning language recognition,” uphold data privacy and adhere to HIPAA requirements. A study on mental health apps found that while users appreciated the accessibility and personalized feel of these chatbot-based platforms, concerns around inappropriate responses and emotional detachment highlight the need for more ethical and human-centered AI design. Caribbean-African American with Gullah roots, Mary Elizabeth Sade Brown, is a creative director, coder, and healer who shares that “the technology space is very nuanced, skewed.” Diversity is an essential topic of discussion in AI systems, as we need to create unbiased language to prevent society’s racial programming from being coded into bigger technology. As a Black woman in technology, she shares, “This is about representation.” Brown explains that we must see “past the problem of the technology coder bias.” Expressing “the demographics of us that actually get over the imposter syndrome to attempt to even get in the door, then study to stay in the door” illustrates the difficulties of entering the field and being successful. Brown, who has worked with companies like Slutty Vegan and AT&T, describes technology as “a company collective that is money-fed and focused on solving problems good, bad, mediocre.” She admits AI therapy apps can be a great support, as people are “looking for healing in many places,” but she warns you to check your resources. 

For Andorfer-Lopez and many mental health providers, “The question becomes how we can use technology not to replace the practitioner, but to complement the work they are doing — enabling them to spend more of their life force energy into the patient/client care and not the draining admin stuff.” I recently spoke with the team at Suggestic AI, a digital wellness platform offering AI-powered tools that help health coaches, therapists, and practitioners scale their impact without losing the human touch. By automating backend tasks like scheduling, personalized AI client engagement that integrates over 30,000 scientific health research, and customized content delivery. This app aims to free up time for deeper, relationship-centered care.  AI therapy isn’t a miracle cure, but it’s a necessary response to a broken system for many. As technology reshapes how we access care, the challenge is ensuring these tools support, not replace, human connection, cultural competence, and real healing. With rising costs, limited access, and growing mental health needs, AI can be a bridge to support BIPOC communities when built with ethics, diversity, and intention. Healing doesn’t begin or end with a chatbot, an app, or a therapist. It’s rooted in community, ancestry, and the courage to reclaim our wholeness in a system that often fragments it. The future of healing will require both technological innovation and humanity to meet the growing demands of mental health issues in our modern society.