Shaping the Future of Mental Health: A Sociological Study of Power, Decision-Making and New Approaches in Psychotherapy

Hakemuksen tiivistelmä

Today, in the midst of the global mental health crisis, two novel approaches are transforming the global mental health industry: psychedelic substances like psilocybin or MDMA (psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, PAT) and digital tools such as AI-powered therapeutic chatbots (digitally enhanced psychotherapy, DET). These are inspired by the ideas of collective spiritual healing coming from globalised neo-shamanic practices (NSP). Although the three approaches are quite distinct, existing research has shown that the actors who develop, promote, and fund them – such as advocacy organisations, funding bodies, IT professionals, and mental health specialists – often belong to the same elite group of mental health visionaries who share a common social and ideological foundation. While existing studies focus on the effectiveness and ethical implications of PAT and DET, and the neocolonial aspects of NSP, and consider these three phenomena separately, the social factors driving the adoption and advancement of these new approaches, along with the social group simultaneously supporting them all, remain unexplored. My project addresses this gap by conducting a qualitative, interview-based study of the people and organisations involved in the development of these technologies in Finland and the Netherlands. Drawing on the Bourdieusian field theory and relational sociology, I will examine contributors whose actions influence the field, examining who holds the power shape mental health technologies, how they are developed, and with what consequences. This study also engages broader debates about self-optimisation and solutionism and explores how these technologies shape the very definition of mental health – whether they reinforce a pharmaceutical, technological or spiritual models. Through this, I aim to deepen the sociological understanding of how power and ideology intersect in mental health innovation.