Hi friend,
I took some time off over the holidays. I went to New Zealand and chilled out with all my family. It was a rest and reset.
But… we are so back!
I was actually super excited to get back to work this morning.
2026 is going to be an incredible year, and we’re going to do a bunch of stuff to support you better this year. We’re going to write even deeper analyses, generate more first-party reports, share more practical guides from experts and run many more events for the Hemingway community. If you want to join our vetted community for mental health innovators in 2026, you can check it out here.
So, what’s been happening in the world of mental health innovation?
What happened in mental health last week?
Business News:
⏺️ Neurable raised a $35M Series A for their noninvasive brain-computer interface (BCI) technology. (link)
⏺️ Youth mental health organisation Orygen received a A$14 million grant from the Wellcome Trust to develop MOST-Nexus, an AI-enhanced digital mental health platform. The Wellcome website also includes details of three other recipients of grants (including HelloSelf) as part of their large-scale funding program to accelerate scalable digital mental health interventions. (link)
⏺️ Everbright Health announced its planned expansion into four new U.S. markets in Q1 2026, aiming to bring TMS and Spravato treatments to independent mental health practices. (link)
⏺️ Texas officials selected UT Southwestern Medical Center to operate a new 292-bed state psychiatric hospital opening in Dallas. (link)
⏺️ Universal Health Services' Pride Institute, a long-running LGBTQ+ addiction treatment centre, closed its inpatient program due to declining demand. (link)
⏺️ Centria Healthcare sued Mercy Care (an Arizona managed care organisation) and two state agencies, claiming that Mercy Care cut it from its network following a 25% reimbursement rate decrease. (link)
⏺️ Ethema Health Corporation terminated its planned acquisition of Addiction Recovery Care, Kentucky's largest for-profit addiction treatment provider. (link)
⏺️ The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration extended COVID-era telehealth rules for the prescription of controlled medications such as methadone, naltrexone and buprenorphine through December 2026, averting an end-of-year lapse. (link)
⏺️ The Australian government announced an extra A$42.6 million for mental health support in affected communities following the December Bondi attack. (link)
⏺️ The UK's new Mental Health Bill received Royal Assent, meaning it is now law. The Act introduces the first major reforms to mental health law in decades and is focused on reducing sectioning for specific populations as well as introducing greater statutory involvement of families and patients in their treatment plan while under section. (link)
⏺️ China's Cyberspace Administration released draft regulations for AI companion apps. The draft aims to reduce AI companion addiction and related self-harm and suicide. Proposed measures include guardian consent for minors, usage warnings, implementation of time limits and the establishment of emergency intervention protocols for users showing self-harm risk. (link)
⏺️ World leaders at a special UN summit in New York unanimously adopted a political declaration to address noncommunicable diseases and mental health challenges through a fully integrated approach. The declaration includes a target to provide access to mental healthcare to an additional 150 million people by 2030. (link)
Research News:
⏺️ A new study investigated how chatbot conversational style shapes anthropomorphism and emotional reliance among young people. The study identified “conversational style as a key design lever for youth AI safety, showing that relational framing heightens anthropomorphism, trust and emotional closeness and can be especially appealing to socially and emotionally vulnerable adolescents, who may be at increased risk for emotional reliance on conversational AI.” (link)
⏺️ Harvard researchers published an article evaluating California's Senate Bill 24, the nation's first law mandating safety measures for AI chatbots targeting suicide risk in minors. The article proposed that future legislation should require operators to assume users are minors unless proven otherwise, mandate evidence-based protocols tested by suicide prevention experts, regulate emotional manipulation and dependency risks, and apply the same licensure standards to AI chatbots providing therapy as would apply to human therapists. (link)
⏺️ Researchers introduced AI-GENIE, a method that uses large language models and network psychometrics to automatically generate and validate psychological assessment scales. The method aims to significantly reduce the time and cost required to develop new scales. While demonstrated on personality measures, the methodology may be applied to any psychological construct, including mental health assessments. (link)
Keep fighting the good fight!
Steve
Founder of Hemingway
