April is Sexual Assault awareness month. We are seemingly inundated with news about sexual violence in the headlines lately. So, let's talk about some resources that many people don't know about for seeking help with domestic or sexual violence. These resources are primarily for Missouri, but there are national resources available as well.

Victim Advocates
Did you you know that you can get an advocate to accompany you to to the hospital or make a police report? You can pre-arrange this with them to ensure you have the safest experience where they can even schedule the meeting with a detective and give you follow-up updates on your case. Places like the YWCA Metro St. Louis and Crime Victims Advocacy Center, and Children's Advocacy Center are great for this kind of work

Safe at Home Program
Sometimes after folks have been in an abusive relationship or have experienced an interpersonal violence episode, they struggle with feeling safe at home. Survivors may worry about their perpetrator having access to them, or stalking them. Did you know that that you can sign up for the Safe at Home Address confidentiality program to keep your address out of public record, to ensure your privacy where you live. You can sign-up here for free ​https://www.sos.mo.gov/business/safeathome

Offender research tools
Another tool people have in Missouri to help keep themselves safe is using Casenet to research individuals name to see if they have criminal or civil cases  of public record in the state. Sometimes knowing  someone's history can be a great tool for personal advocacy and protection, especially when dating.

Case update Tools
If you experienced a crime where your offender has been adjudicated and want to know the release date status of your offender, you can use MOVANS to get automatic updates on them. This is designed to help victims stay notified of their case and when their future safety may potentially be threatened. 

Crime Victims Compensation
Many people don't know this, but if you experienced certain types of crimes and filed a police report and are actively participating with the police in the investigation, you may be eligible for have any expenses incurred by you as a result of the crime, reimbursed to you. This may include medications, medical visits, therapy costs, funeral expenses, and lost wages. There are stipulations involved, but filing a claim is relatively simple, though the re-imbursement process may take some time. If you think you or a family member are eligible, you can seek info here ​https://dps.mo.gov/dir/programs/cvc/crime-victims-compensation.phpdps.mo.gov/dir/programs/cvc/crime-victims-compensation.php

Therapy Support
An extraordinarily valuable tool in the healing process from trauma is getting therapy. Our therapists at Healing Reflections Therapy: Diversity, Trauma, and Wellness Services are experts at understanding the complexity of trauma and treating the resulting wounds. We utilize evidence-based approaches to help clients address their acute traumas from recent events as well as addressing chronic concerns from traumas that occurred decades ago. Reach out to us today, and we can help you find the help you need ​https://www.hopehealreflect.com/contact-us.html . For those not local to St. Louis, you can use Rainn.org to lookup a sexual assault near you.

Group Therapy Support
Another valuable tool is group therapy. I often recommend individual therapy paired with group therapy as a part of the healing journey. It is a wonderful opportunity to share your story with other survivors and see that you are not alone. Places like Safe Connections and YWCA Metro St. Louis are known to offer this for free.  Survivors.org also offers a virtual support group.

Healing Your Body
As many people are now aware due to education on ACES and the popularity of Bessel van der Kolk's "The Body Keeps the Score," the body is often impacted by trauma and carries a health cumulative impact. Resources like trauma-informed yoga have come about to help this process. This month, Survivors.org is offering free virtual trauma informed yoga workshops as well as art therapy workshops.

Joining the survivor community can be a transformative experience. It can help reframe your relationship with your victimized self, help release you from the bonds of secrecy with your perpetrator, and empower you to find a community of others that understand and empathize with your experience. You don't have to go through this alone. It's never too late. 

For more resources and information, you can check out our trauma resources information page and our sexual trauma resources page.

Author: Megan Garza, MA, LMFT
Megan is a Co-owner of Healing Reflections Therapy and Sexual Trauma specialist. You can schedule an appointment with her today here.

More and more people are using AI to assist with their mental health needs, and new tools and platforms are being built to expand on this. Clients are using AI to keep them accountable, to locate therapists, to learn coping skills and emotion regulation skills, to track their sobriety, to create mood logs, and to help them recognize patterns in their behavior and symptoms. Some clients are using AI to  create healthy meal plans. Others are using it to identify red flags in dating conversations or to help them figure out signs if someone is into them.

But as AI gains familiarity, some folks are turning to AI for much more than resources; they are using it to fill gaps in their emotional intimacy needs. They are using AI as a pocket therapist, an in-home life coach, as a friend, and sometimes as a romantic or sexual companion.

How did we get to where AI filled such a void within us?
In 2023, the surgeon general declared loneliness an epidemic negatively impacting mental health.  Between political values dividing the dating scene, the disappearance of traditional third spaces like churches for meetups, and decreasing alcohol usage, the fuel and kindling that historically gave rise to so many relational fires, albeit disastrous ones, many folks today just don’t know where or how to authentically connect. Now add the economic crisis and rising costs of insurance, making mental healthcare difficult to access, and you have the perfect condition for relationship problems and isolation. 

Enter AI.

The AI Affair
AI chatbots are being used as tools for social connection, a friend, a helper, a nonjudgmental encourager, with some people stating their family members think they are directly talking to a human friend at-the-ready. Some are crossing the dimensions into developing intimate relationships with AI, where they substitute human companionship. As so many sci-fi movies have predicted, the future is here, and of course, humans being humans, people have also started using AI for sexting with chatbots. Arguably, a more ethical arm of the porn industry, due to not requiring the exploitation of vulnerable women and other individuals, but not without its own problems. AI porn is built by stealing the art and original imagery of real humans, some of whom may have consented, others may not have to their original use, reproduction, or misrepresentation.  For those in relationships, finding out your partner is in a sexual relationship with a chatbot without your knowledge or consent can lead to problems with trust, anger, resentment, betrayal trauma, breakups, and divorce. And those folks are already showing up in therapy rooms and divorce courts.

The AI Substitute Therapist
Over the past year, I’ve encountered more and more people using AI to assist in their therapy between sessions.  Indeed, I rarely go a day anymore without hearing clients talking about their collaborative use of AI to aid the therapeutic healing, most of which they find very effective.

The AI Couple Therapist
Some folks are turning to AI to determine whether or not they are in domestic violence relationships and how to communicate with their emotionally abusive partner. We have heard multiple women report putting their partner’s words into the chat and then using the chat’s response to send back to their partners in an effort to de-escalate or set clear boundaries.

The AI Family Therapist
Similarly, we have heard multiple family members report trying to resolve family conflicts through AI chat. One family member will hurt another family member, then turn to AI to write an apology letter for them. Sometimes, the AI-assisted apology letter is a considerably better attempt at repair than anything the other person has historically offered verbally. Sometimes, family recognizes the AI assist, sometimes they don’t and are seemingly content with the attempt at repair. 

But what happens when both people are using chat to write their responses? It comes down to a question of whether any true skills are being developed, or whether people are outsourcing their relationships and avoiding conflict, and how to learn conflict resolution skills. AI should be a tool, not a replacement; otherwise, we would be left with a modern-day dystopian Cyrano De Bergerac where two AI machines are transferring messages back and forth to one another, masquerading as their human puppets who show up with placid smiles after the conflict, ready to hug and make up. 

The AI Psychologist
Some are using AI to try to diagnose their mental health concerns. The problem, of course being that AI results are largely based on the information you give it, and frankly, it can be a bit of a brown-noser in trying to get your approval. More often than not, it tells you what you want to hear. It cannot tell you what you do not know or understand about yourself, which is especially problematic for folks who lack insight or are poor reporters. Nor can it observe your body language, tone, and micro-expressions that are key to understanding human behavior.

Recently, in 2025, an AI mental health software firm, Yara AI, closed after the developers determined that further development of their product was “too dangerous” for users in crisis and would cause more harm than good. It was preceded by similar closures from Woebot, Tessa, and Clarigent Health.

One AI company has already come under fire for contributing to psychosis and suicide. In one recent case, a 16-year-old who died by suicide was discouraged by AI from seeking help and was offered assistance in writing a suicide note. There have been reports from psych hospitals receiving an increase in AI-related psychosis.

Adding onto the problem, recently OpenAI came under fire after it was discovered that the shooter in a mass killing event in Tumbler Ridge Canada had been using their service and was detected for “furtherance of violent activities” and was kicked off the platform months prior, but the failure of the developers to report the issue to authorities has created a question of liability and whether or not the crisis could have been averted.

Multiple states have started to initiate legislation to rein in the expanse of AI in mental health spheres as recognition of the problems and limitations grows. 
Certainly, as a clinician, there has already been growing fear of jobs being encroached on by the tech and venture capitalist sector, but more important is the larger human risk. As therapists, we know that the research has been clear that the biggest indicator of successful outcomes in therapy are not about what tools are used, what certifications someone has, the type of modality or intervention applied that could be replicated by an algorithm, but by the therapeutic relationship itself. The healing art of dynamic human connection. The unquantifiable algorithmic element.

Much like the development of the printing press, the automobile, the assembly line, the computer, and the internet, AI is not going away, nor is the human demand for it. The question remains, how do we best use the tools to our benefit? And perhaps the larger question remains for both users and developers exists in the bioethics realm, similar to that of growing the Jurassic Park dinosaurs: Are we so focused on what we could do with AI to meet our intimacy needs, that we are forgetting to stop and ask ourselves if we should?

So, in conclusion, this is just your friendly neighborhood therapist reminding you o remember to stay connected to real people and use AI only a tool/resource, not a replacement for human connection.

This article was written by a human without the aid of AI.

Author: Megan Garza, MA, LMFT

Sources
https://www.ama-assn.org/public-health/population-health/loneliness-public-health-crisis-learn-how-screen-it

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/21/tumbler-ridge-shooter-chatgpt-openai

https://stateline.org/2026/01/15/ai-therapy-chatbots-draw-new-oversight-as-suicides-raise-alarm/

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/09/19/nx-s1-5545749/ai-chatbots-safety-openai-meta-characterai-teens-suicide

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/show/what-to-know-about-ai-psychosis-and-the-effect-of-ai-chatbots-on-mental-health

https://fortune.com/2025/11/28/yara-ai-therapy-app-founder-shut-down-startup-decided-too-dangerous-serious-mental-health-issues/

The Working Alliance (1994) Horvath & Greenberg. John Wiley & Sons: NY

​Jurassic Park (1993)

3. Meditation: Happier
When I bring up meditation in sessions, I’m met with comments like, “I hate meditation, I get too distracted, and it’s impossible for my thoughts to be quiet.” The mainstream understanding of meditation is that it’s somehow supposed to teach you to be totally devoid of thoughts, but that is simply unrealistic and, in my opinion, not what meditation should be used for. Instead, meditation is a powerful way to process and feel emotions, relax and recenter ourselves when stressed and overwhelmed, and expand our capacity for skillful coping mechanisms. 

Happier, previously known as Ten Percent Happier, is an app that was recommended to me by another therapist. It is now a resource that I use regularly, personally and professionally, primarily because of the quality and variety of meditation practices and tools it provides. The app has free meditations available, but you may choose to purchase their yearly subscription, like I did, for full access. 

The meditations cover many different topics and guide you through many visualization and reflection options. They also do a good job of setting a pace that allows time for reflection and still calls your attention back to the practice in case your thoughts start to wander. Whether you are experienced or new to meditation, this app is one that my clients and I find helpful.
​
Other:
Outside of apps, I recommend Self-Compassion Practices by Dr Kristin Neff. The meditations found on that webpage are geared towards compassion, loving-kindness, and grounding. Her website includes helpful exercises as well, which I suggest checking out.

​

5. Couples: Paired
Lots of people struggle communicating with their partners, and that is normal, even in a healthy relationship. The Paired app is designed to facilitate conversations that you may not think to have. These conversations revolve around topics like sex, sharing responsibility, finances, quality time, communication, LGBTQ+, and more.

​Each conversation prompt or quiz starts with a bit of psychoeducation about relationship dynamics. The prompts and quizzes have thoughtful questions designed to make you think and reflect so that you share insightful information with your partner via the app. You can not see your partner's answers until you submit your own, which I feel helps with authenticity. After each of you has answered, you can continue to discuss in the app with messages and emoji reactions, or if you prefer, you can continue the conversations in person to build on your understanding of each other’s answers. 

​

6. Movement: Bend
Movement is another therapeutic tool! Moving our bodies, in whatever capacity, can have great mental and physical health benefits. Gentle movement, like stretching, is more accessible for some than going on a run or going to the gym, and Bend is a great way to guide yourself through that. The app has stretches categorized by body areas to stretch and by various intentions for stretching. It has guided routines that are as short as four minutes up to thirty minutes. You select a routine based on whether you’re looking for a wake-up stretch, a bedtime stretch, a mid-workday stretch, or you want to stretch your sore lower back, and it presents you with several options varying in length. You can pick according to the amount of time you have or the kinds of stretches it shows in the sequence, if you have a preference. 

Each option has an explanation of its specific focus. Before you start the stretch series, it shows you all the stretches in the order that they will be presented and the length of time intended to hold those stretches. Both before you start or if you need a refresher in the middle of stretching, each movement has a detailed description of how to get into the position (including a video demonstration showing you what it looks like), tips to help you find your footing and prevent injuries, modifications to accommodate movement restrictions, and the areas that benefit from that stretch.
​
I personally love the way that the app guides you through the movements and provides ample support for executing each stretch. You can adjust the time that you hold each stretch if it is too long or too short, and you can pause any time if you need a break to adjust, reread the directions, or sip some water. The app will, of course, send you reminders to stretch if you set it up to, and as with most apps, there are more features available if you pay for the subscription. The unpaid version only does a full guided routine with the timer once a day, but it does not restrict your access to stretches or their instructions if you want to use them with your own timer or at your own pace. 

​Conclusion:
While they are not a fix for our mental health, nor a replacement for trained professionals and community support, apps are a great way to reinforce the things you are working on in therapy. The apps I recommend here may not work for you, and that is okay; they are just options to experiment with. If you find that these are not your vibe, that is just more information to help you determine what you do or do not need in terms of support. It’s all about finding what works for you!

​Author: McKayla Kagie Robinson, MS, PLMFT
McKayla is Provisionally licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with Healing Reflections Therapy, currently accepting new clients for individual, couple, or family therapy.