New AI Laws, a Major Therapist Strike, and What It Means for Your Work

Each week brings new conversations about mental health, technology, and care. Between Sessions gathers what's worth your attention - so you can stay informed without adding to your workload.

Vermont's House passed H.816 on March 18, prohibiting mental health services where AI provides therapeutic judgment, diagnosis, or treatment - while explicitly allowing AI for documentation and administrative functions when a licensed clinician remains responsible. 

👉 Why it matters: The bill draws the line - AI as a clinical support tool, not a stand-in for a clinician. 

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Three states are currently advancing bills targeting insurers using AI to make coverage and prior authorization decisions without meaningful human review. Washington passed SB 5395, requiring transparency in AI-assisted prior authorization. Alabama's SB 63 cleared the Senate and is advancing through the House. Georgia's SB 444 targets the same practice. 

👉 Why it matters: These bills would require a licensed human to be accountable when AI drives a denial or delay in a patient's mental health coverage. 

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A study in Translational Psychiatry found that young adults with major depressive disorder show an unusual ATP energy pattern: higher at rest, but unable to ramp up under stress - a new biological window into why depression fatigue is so hard to treat. 

👉 Why it matters: When patients describe depression as exhaustion rather than sadness, this supports naming it as physiology - not a character trait - which can reduce shame and improve engagement. 

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WHO has issued AI ethics guidance since 2021, but this week's announcement is structurally different: WHO is establishing a Consortium of Collaborating Centres on AI for Health across all six regions, tasked with producing evidence-based governance recommendations, not just principles. 

👉 Why it matters: Prior WHO guidance had no enforcement structure. This consortium can produce the evidence base regulators need - and its co-design position would give clinicians a seat at the table. 

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Up to 2,400 mental health professionals at Kaiser Permanente in Northern California staged a one-day strike on March 18, citing Kaiser's push to eliminate workload limits and resist contract language protecting against AI replacing clinical roles. 

👉 Why it matters: The issues on Kaiser's bargaining table - caseload limits, AI in clinical judgment, provider recourse - are the same questions every clinician is navigating right now. 

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Universal Health Services announced on March 9 it will acquire Talkspace for $835 million, bringing roughly 6,000 virtual therapists into its network. UHS executives said the deal was driven by a single constraint: access to therapists. 

👉 Why it matters: When a hospital conglomerate buys a therapy platform because it can't find enough clinicians, it signals how tight the labor market has become - and how fast the competition for patients is consolidating. 

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"Autobiographical Memory as a Resource for Dementia Impairment Evaluation and Support: The Role of Early-Life Immigration in Identity Reconstruction," by Harold J. Bursztajn, MD, and Olivia Pan in Psychiatric Times - on why immigration history is a meaningful variable in how memory loss presents and what constitutes continuity of self. 

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This week, Berries shared two resources for your practice and wellbeing.

Podcast: Nancy Cowden, LMFT and founder of The Prosperous Therapist, joins Kym Tolson on why most therapists set fees based on fear rather than real numbers, and what it takes to think like both a clinician and an entrepreneur. Twenty-seven minutes. 

→ Listen to our podcast

Meditation: If this week left you carrying other people's weight - Julie Ela Grace recorded a 12-minute guided meditation on letting empathy move through you rather than settle in you, using breath, body awareness, and grounding. 

→ Try our meditation

Whether it's a bill in Vermont or a picket line in Oakland, the argument being made this week - that clinical relationships require a human at the center - is the same argument you make every time you show up for a patient.

As always, thank you for your truly important work.

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This newsletter is intended for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute clinical, legal, or regulatory guidance. Clinicians should rely on their professional judgment and applicable standards of care when integrating any technology into practice.