Raju Maharjan

AI-Mediated Mental Health Disclosure

This project explores how AI systems can responsibly support youth mental health by strengthening connections to trusted sources of care with privacy, agency, and trust at the center.

Youth in the United States are facing a growing mental health crisis [1]. However, many adolescents do not seek timely support due to barriers such as difficulty articulating their emotional experiences, uncertainty about when or how to ask for help, and concerns about social stigma [2]. At the same time, recent studies show that one in eight adolescents use generative AI chatbots (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini) to seek mental health advice because they are accessible, immediate, and perceived as private [3,4]. Despite this growing use, AI-mediated conversations remain isolated from adolescents’ formal care circle and are vulnerable to hallucinated or potentially harmful guidance [5].

Existing research on AI and mental health highlights its potential for screening, psychoeducation, and structured therapeutic interactions [6,7]. This project examines how AI systems can responsibly support youth mental health and wellbeing. Rather than positioning AI as a standalone source of support, it explores how such systems can strengthen connections between young people and the trusted individuals in their lives, with careful attention to privacy, agency, and trust.

References

  1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Youth mental health: The numbers, Nov 29 2024. Accessed: 2025-12-12.
  2. Jerica Radez, Tessa Reardon, Cathy Creswell, Faith Orchard, and Polly Waite. Adolescents’ perceived barriers and facilitators to seeking and accessing professional help for anxiety and depressive disorders: a qualitative interview study. European child & adolescent psychiatry, 31(6):891–907, 2022.
  3. Ryan K McBain, Robert Bozick, Melissa Diliberti, Li Ang Zhang, Fang Zhang, Alyssa Burnett, Aaron Kofner, Benjamin Rader, Joshua Breslau, Bradley D Stein, et al. Use of generative ai for mental health advice among us adolescents and young adults. JAMA Network Open, 8(11):e2542281–e2542281, 2025.
  4. Hannah R Lawrence, Renee A Schneider, Susan B Rubin, Maja J Matari ´c, Daniel J McDuff, and Megan Jones Bell. The opportunities and risks of large language models in mental health. JMIR Mental Health, 11(1):e59479, 2024.
  5. Scott Monteith, Tasha Glenn, John R Geddes, Peter C Whybrow, Eric Achtyes, and Michael Bauer. Artificial intelligence and increasing misinformation. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 224(2):33–35, 2024.
  6. Raluca Balan and Thomas P Gumpel. Chatgpt clinical use in mental health care: Scoping review of empirical evidence. JMIR Mental Health, 12:e81204, 2025.
  7. Thieme, A., Hanratty, M., Lyons, M., Palacios, J., Marques, R. F., Morrison, C., & Doherty, G. (2023). Designing human-centered AI for mental health: Developing clinically relevant applications for online CBT treatment. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 30(2), 1-50.
  8. Andreas Bucher, Sarah Egger, Inna Vashkite, Wenyuan Wu, and Gerhard Schwabe. “it’s not only attention we need”: Systematic review of large language models in mental health care. JMIR Mental Health, 12(1):e78410, 2025.