Psychology Week puts AI centre stage: the mental health debate arrives before the evidence

By El Mundo CR · November 7, 2026.

Psychology Week will examine the impact of artificial intelligence on mental health and human well-being, according to the headline published by El Mundo CR. Of the material we have received, we only know that headline and the article's URL: we do not have the program, the speakers, the dates or any figures. We are not going to make them up.

That is why this piece is brief and focuses on what we can say with some judgment.

Our take: a gathering of psychologists devoting its agenda to AI is a good sign. As context for the sector, millions of people already use chatbots as informal emotional support, and wellness apps built on language models are multiplying. Practice is running ahead of clinical evidence. The ones who should set standards in this area are the profession, not each product's marketing department.

There are two real short-term risks. The first is emotional dependence on systems that are not therapists and are not accountable as such. The second is the safekeeping of intimate data: what someone tells a chatbot can be far more sensitive than a web search. In general, social acceptance of AI in sensitive areas depends on human oversight. It is the same pattern we see in healthcare, where the public is far more accepting of AI as support for professionals than as a replacement for them.

There is also an opportunity. In the long term, AI can broaden access to psychological care where professionals are scarce today, detect early signs of crisis and free up clinical time from administrative tasks. That fits our underlying thesis: a society with greater well-being and more resources for everyone. But getting there requires evidence, informed consent and traceability, not enthusiasm.

When the full program is published, it will be worth seeing whether the debate stays at generic warnings or lands on concrete protocols: who supervises, what data is stored and when a human should step in.