Industry News for Therapists: October 2025 Updates

Your monthly roundup of what’s new in the therapy world. Quick, clear updates to keep you informed without the overwhelm.

Here’s our latest summary, kindly provided by Steve Duke of the The Hemingway Report. Keep up to date on industry news helps to help understand the direction of the industry and future proof your career!

October 2025 Updates

➡️ OpenAI indicated plans to establish an online network of therapists that ChatGPT would route users to as needed. My next question, is how to we make sure ChatGPT knows about us as therapists? How will it choose who? Will it hire therapists itself?

In the launch, they say “that means going beyond crisis hotlines and considering how we might build a network of licensed professionals people could reach directly through ChatGPT.” This suggests OpenAI might be on the verge of putting together a list of online therapists globally. We’ll keep an eye on this and keep you updated!

➡️ Flow Neuroscience received TGA approval in Australia for its brain stimulation treatment, becoming the first at-home depression device approved in the country.

➡️ In Australia, Medibank expanded its coverage of psychedelic treatments to include Treatment-Resistant Depression.

➡️ A new pilot study examined the ketogenic diet as adjunct therapy for college students with major depressive disorder. The Nature article concluded that results indicate robust and sustained decreases in depression symptoms over 10–12 weeks.

➡️ Ireland’s 2026 Budget 2026 allocated nearly €1.6 billion for mental health services, marking a sixth consecutive annual increase and over 50% growth since 2020. However, it is still less than 6% of total health spending.

➡️ Health New Zealand launched Ask Groov, the country’s first endorsed AI-powered wellbeing guide for adults.

➡️ Exin Therapeutics (YC W25) invested $25M to build a neurotherapeutics lab in the Philippines for AI-driven brain disorder therapies.

➡️ Lyra Health launched a “clinical-grade” chatbot designed to provide evidence-based mental health support and resources.

➡️ OpenAI announced a new eight-member expert council on Well-Being and AI to guide the development of mental health-supportive AI experiences and safety measures.

➡️ A new study found that LLMs could identify human facial expressions with a high degree of accuracy. They study published in Nature Digital Health examined the ability of LLMs to identify human facial expressions and found that accuracy was highest in ChatGPT4o at 86%, 84% for Gemeni 2.0 Experimental, and 74% for Claude 3.5 Sonnet.