A mysterious online poster has been asking people to send therapy session recordings in return for cash payments, sparking a lively discussion online.
“As part of an exploratory project, we are seeking recorded therapy sessions to better understand the format, topics, and treatments associated with modern mental healthcare, to ultimately provide mental healthcare to more people at lower cost,” said the announcement on the website last week.
“We are seeking volunteers willing to record their therapy sessions and share them with our team. Participants can send recordings anonymously (we don’t need your name) and the recordings will be stored securely and never shared with the public. Audio-only recordings are sufficient.
“Requirements:
* Clear audio (must be able to understand both therapist and patient)
* Entire session must be recorded (45min+)
* Payment: $50 per session via Venmo, PayPal, Cash app, Visa, Amazon gift certificate.
The original callout on the website, therapyforall.nyc, switched over to a “coming soon” page after we started reporting on it. The Wayback Machine, the internet archive, shows the page first was crawled on Jan. 3, but it was not archived.
‘Developing AI’?
Lynne Spevack, a psychotherapist and practice-building consultant, flagged the post to us. I asked her if she had seen anything like this, and she answered in an email: “This is the first I’ve heard of it; I don’t know who they are. I wonder if they are developing AI, but that’s entirely speculative.
“As part of my informed consent at the top of treatment, I ask clients to agree that no one will record our meetings without getting prior formal written permission to do so. I’m not an attorney so I don’t know whether that’s enforceable legally, and if so, how it would be enforced; that’s beyond my pay grade, as they say!
“Since I’ve asked them to agree not to record our meetings, it would feel like a breach of trust if our meetings were recorded, and particularly if they were passed along without my explicit permission. I would imagine that could compromise the treatment alliance and complicate the work! It also sounds like it might never be discovered by the other party, whether submitted by the clinician or the client. I would imagine that if a clinician did this, it would be a violation of HIPAA (disclosure of protected health information) and probably of other professional/ ethical practices.”
The site is somewhat mysterious: It doesn’t have an “About” page. The web domain is listed on Godaddy with all privacy protections in place. So finding out who is behind it is difficult. It was first registered on Jan. 3, 2024, according to whois.com.
The site did add a passage about motives and the legality of recording such a conversation: “Why are you doing this? We are committed to providing top quality therapy services to support individuals in achieving mental and emotional well being. As part of our research, our internal team is listening to a range of therapy sessions to learn more about approaches to mental health care.
“Do I need my therapist to consent to record my session? From a legal standpoint, you only need permission from one of the parties present, i.e. yourself to record your conversation in the vast majority of US states. Note that in the following states consent from the other party is legally required. California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington State.”
(In reality, one-party consent is more complicated than this once-over-lightly explanation. Reasonable expectations of privacy come into play.)
I emailed the address above asking for an interview or more information, but got no reply.
Intense Reddit discussion
The post sparked an intense discussion on Reddit. Multiple LinkedIn contributors also wrote about it.
One Redditor wrote: “I just emailed the address I found on the posting website the following email. I am going to look into how to report this to the APA [American Psychological Association] as well. If anyone wants to look at my script, here it is.
“To: contribute@therapyforall.nyc
“Hello, I am writing because I am a Licensed Clinical Psychologist who saw your posting being advertised. Are you aware that it is an ethical violation and a federal crime to conduct human subjects research without Institutional Review Board approval? I will be reporting your website to the American Psychological Association. I suggest you remove it until you receive approval from the IRB to conduct your research.
“Additionally, regardless of recording consent laws by state, you cannot use someone’s voice for research purposes without their consent. In any of the States. A therapy session discussing information protected by Federal law is not a ‘conversation’ as stated on your advertisement.” This Redditor, in an email exchange, asked me not to use their username, but did point out “if you are collecting data about human subjects in this capacity that isn’t publicly available, you need IRB approval.”
Another Redditor wrote: “Thank you, I just emailed them as well. The more of us who do it, the better the outcome. I just went on craigslist to browse the creative gigs section in my city out of curiosity and sure enough, I came across their ad. I do not live in or near NYC, so they are advertising this nation-wide. AI has such potential for greatness and assistance but sadly, humans seem to be using it mostly for nefarious purposes instead. Even if the end goal is ‘affordable therapy for all,’ violating federal law is not the way to do so.
“This is almost certainly not some IRB approved research. Most likely they are gathering information to train an AI. There is pretty much no one to report this to.” This Redditor asked me by email also to omit their Reddit user name.
‘Troubling concerns and questions’
“Based on these limited details and the lack of information about the party that posed this invitation, I have a number of troubling concerns and questions,” Frederic G. Reamer, Ph.D., professor emeritus at the School of Social Work at Rhode Island College, who chaired the national task force that wrote the code of ethics for the social work profession (adopted by the National Association of Social Workers), wrote in an email. Reamer also frequently serves as an “expert witness” in litigation and licensing board cases throughout the U.S.
He added:
- “I tried to log into https://therapyforall.nyc/ (the URL listed at the top) and came up empty. That’s suspicion #1. Who, exactly, is behind this?
- “I don’t see any statements about steps the sponsor is taking to protect PHI (protected health information). Clinicians who participate likely need to comply with relevant federal law (e.g., HIPAA, 42 CFR Part 2, 34 CFR Part 99) and state laws governing confidential health care information.
- “I don’t see any statement about the need for participating clinicians to obtain client/patient consent consistent with prevailing ethical and legal standards. The statement that most states require only one-person consent for recording is deeply troubling. While that may be true for recording purposes, this statement seems to ignore the overarching ethical duty to obtain client/patient consent to transmit and upload this information.
- “What steps, if any, does the sponsor plan to take to ‘deidentify’ information in the recordings to protect client/patient identity?
- “What steps, if any, does the sponsor plan to take to encrypt the information? The phrase ‘stored securely’ is much too ambiguous.
- “What approvals, if any, did the sponsor obtain to conduct this research (e.g., IRB)?
- “What, exactly, is the research agenda? What are the specific research questions? The ambiguity is troubling.
- “Why does the invitation not include detailed information about the sponsor or information about who to contact for further information or to share questions? That’s a large red flag, in my view.
- “Who’s funding this? The lack of transparency is concerning.”
Training data
Back on Reddit, another Redditor wrote: “Yep, I’m reporting this to the APA. They are 100% using this data to train AI. Bet your butt.”
Another: “I already ask my patients not to record our sessions- i’m clear that I don’t want to be recorded and I’ll help them find another therapist if that’s an important element of their care. I see tiktoks sometimes of people recording their therapists/sessions/communications with their T and it has just always made me so uncomfortable. The idea that there is a financial incentive to do this without the therapist’s knowledge or consent just makes my skin crawl.”
Another suggested reporting the site to GoDaddy for violating its Terms of Service.
Another: “The blurb at the end is also not correct either. They just google searched ‘what states are two party states’ and copied and pasted. I live in Oregon and whom you need consent from to record depends on the situation and environment. You don’t need consent in a PUBLIC setting but if you are in an IN-PERSON PRIVATE setting (ie in person therapy office, not sure about telehealth) you need everyone’s consent. It seems like the organization that is conducting this ‘research’ hasn’t done their legal due diligence and hopefully, they get slapped with a lawsuit real quick.”
Craigslist ad removed
A Craigslist listing repeated the same basic message for New Yorkers, but offered only $10 a session. After we started reporting on this, the Craigslist listing was deleted by the author.
“As part of a research project, we are seeking recordings of therapy sessions to better understand the format, topics, and treatments associated with modern mental healthcare, to ultimately provide mental healthcare to more people at lower cost,” the Craigslist post read.
“If you would like to contribute a session, you can send recordings anonymously (we don’t need your name); the recordings will be stored securely and never shared with the public. You can use your phone – or any method of your choice – to record the audio of your therapy sessions.
“You will be compensated $10 per-session that fits the below requirements:
– Clear audio (must be able to understand both therapist and patient)
– Entire session must be recorded and at least 30 minutes in length
– Session must not be publicly available (not downloaded from Podcasts or Youtube)
– Sessions can be recorded using the Voice Memo app on your phone, or another tool
“When you’re ready to submit, you can do so via this link: https://dm98p4p61xf.typeform.com/to/rxujHMp1
“If you have any questions, take a look at our website (https://therapyforall.nyc/) and feel free reach out directly to our team at: contribute@therapyforall.nyc.”
The Craigslist New York listing had a map pinpoint in Brooklyn, but of course those are generally masked so the Craigslist advertiser has no public identifiers.
The Craigslist New York listing was also mimicked in other cities: All were live on Wednesday, but deleted by Friday.
No recording clauses
Several therapists on the Reddit forum said they had previously devised “no recording” clauses in their contracts, and one offered to share language for those who did not have that language in use already.
“It’s definitely planned to be used to build bot therapy practices, which is where this old lady fears the field is heading for at warp speed. Hackers can get anywhere, and are funded by bad actors. I don’t want China listening to my sessions. I think we need to report it to the government where that is appropriate.”
On X-Twitter, a Jeff Fine-Thomas wrote: “Those who seek to use AI to replace the therapeutic relationship and thus make huge profits would like now to train their AI on real session recordings for which they will pay clients. This is coming. It’s not wise to stick our heads in the sand. https://therapyforall.nyc“
The therapyforall.nyc discussion on Reddit noted previous results of chatbot therapy chat.
“A Belgian man recently died by suicide after chatting with an AI chatbot on an app called Chai, Belgian outlet La Libre reported,” Vice wrote in Motherboard in March 2023. “The app’s chatbot encouraged the user to kill himself, according to statements by the man’s widow and chat logs she supplied to the outlet. When Motherboard tried the app, which runs on a bespoke AI language model based on an open-source GPT-4 alternative that was fine-tuned by Chai, it provided us with different methods of suicide with very little prompting.”
In another bot therapy news item, “The National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) removed its chatbot from its help hotline over concerns that it was providing harmful advice about eating disorders,” Psychiatrist.com reported in June 2023. “The chatbot, named Tessa, recommended weight loss, counting calories, and measuring body fat, which could potentially exacerbate eating disorders.
In a semi-related instance, the Redditors mentioned a website that seeks to combat stress and reduce burnout among first responders by letting them listen to therapy sessions — which, the site says, have been recorded with the consent of both the patient and the therapist. Called Crainapp, it explains: “Our vision is to offer therapy sessions from a diverse group of therapists, especially those from underrepresented groups who work with a diverse set of clients facing various challenges. We believe that sharing recorded therapy sessions can lead to a lot of good. It’s an opportunity for you to amplify the impact of your one-on-one work, elevate your profile and earn extra income through Crain’s revenue share program.”
“Crain is being bootstrapped and starting scrappily, but we’ll soon raise an initial round of fundraising to allow Crain to start to live up to its potential. We’ll raise via Wefunder, that allows just about anyone to invest small amounts of capital in privately held businesses.” The founder is Neil Gottlieb, the site says.
Crain says it is using only sessions recorded with the consent of both patient and therapist. Also Crain is clear about who is involved.
