Exploring ChatGPT's Potential for Mental Health and Emotional Well-being Support: A Nano Review

Abstract The global mental health treatment gap has intensified the pursuit of scalable, accessible interventions, positioning large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT as a subject of significant clinical and ethical inquiry. This nano review provides a critical examination of its emerging, yet highly contested, role as a conversational agent for psychological support. It analyzes the dual evidence for its potential in providing scalable psychoeducation, facilitating self-reflection, and offering low-stigma, on-demand engagement, while methodically detailing its profound and potentially dangerous limitations. These include a fundamental lack of clinical competence, an inability to perform risk assessment or crisis intervention, a propensity for generating inaccurate or harmful advice (“hallucinations”), and serious concerns regarding data privacy and the erosion of therapeutic boundaries. The review concludes that current evidence does not support the unsupervised use of general-purpose LLMs as mental health interventions. Instead, a responsible path forward must prioritize the development of clinically validated, specialized models operating within secure frameworks, and emphasize AI’s role strictly as an adjunctive tool under professional oversight, preserving the irreplaceable elements of human empathy, clinical judgment, and ethical care. Keywords: ChatGPT, mental health, digital therapeutics, AI ethics, conversational agents, psychoeducation, mental health gap, clinical risk, AI in healthcare