Earn 2 CEUS!*
Kei Skeide, MS, LMFT, C-DBT, CCTP (they/them) is a marriage and family therapist licensed in Minnesota and Wisconsin and a PhD candidate in Couple and Family Therapy at Antioch University New England. They direct KWS Consulting & Wellness, providing trauma-informed, gender-affirming care, clinical supervision, and consultation on AI ethics, digital mental health, and decolonizing practice. Kei has presented nationally and internationally on technology, relational ethics, and systemic care, including at the American Family Therapy Academy (AFTA) 2025 Conference and the upcoming International Family Therapy Association (IFTA) Congress 2026 in Bergen, Norway.
Description
AI now mediates help-seeking, triage, documentation, and even “companionship” across borders, often without meaningful, culturally legible consent. This session introduces a practice-ready, tech-pessimist framework grounded in my SHIFT model to support equitable, context-sensitive care in diverse settings. We focus on how clinicians can examine their tools and geopolitical context, protect the right to refuse AI without penalty, and craft consent processes that are trauma-aware, multilingual, and plain-language.
We attend to the real conditions that shape consent across regions: cross-border data transfers, hosting location and third-party access, data retention, vendor incentives, and uneven enforcement of privacy and anti-discrimination laws. Rather than celebrating optimization, we center relational accountability, name the limits of confidentiality with AI tools, and preserve authentic human connection, especially where clients face surveillance, criminalization, or infrastructural barriers.
Using common clinical scenarios, including intake chatbots, predictive flagging, AI-generated notes, and “AI companions,” participants will practice drafting globally aware consent language that specifies where data live, who can see them, what harms are plausible, and what non-AI alternatives are available. The session equips therapists, supervisors, and organizational leaders with adaptable decision rubrics and de-implementation checklists that translate tech pessimism into everyday ethics, linking moment-to-moment clinical choices with governance, audit, and policy actions.
The aim is straightforward: safeguard autonomy, connection, and safety for clients and communities worldwide, and prioritize equity and collective well-being over speed, scale, and data extraction.
Objectives:
1. Analyze & Evaluate the ethical and relational challenges posed by technology, specifically AI, in the practice of systemic therapy, particularly through the lens of tech-pessimism and psychopolitics.
2. Explore the intersection of identity, race, ethnicity, gender, and technology in shaping client experiences and systemic approaches to therapy.
3. Develop a framework for balancing technological innovation with skepticism to ensure equity, relationality, and meaningful therapeutic outcomes in diverse clinical and research settings.
*This CE activity offered by Minnesota Association of Marriage and Family is approved by the Minnesota Board of Social Work as an approved CE Provider (approval valid through July 25, 2026).
This CE activity is pending CE approval with Minnesota Board of Behavioral Health and Board of Marriage and Family Therapy.
