Slingshot AI? Meet the Earthshot (Prize ...!)

Slingshot AI

Ash
"the first AI designed for therapy" 

'In January 2024, we set out to build a 
foundation model for psychology. 

The mental health crisis sweeping across 
our communities isn’t going anywhere, 
and what we’re doing clearly isn’t enough. 
Therapists have one of the hardest jobs in the world,
and there just aren't enough people 
or resources to help everyone in need.
And we all know in our hearts that everyone 
could use some help with their mental health. ...'

'We need a foundation model for psychology.'

 

🔷 

 

Plus a bit more ...? 

 

INDIVIDUAL

|

    INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL 

|

GROUP

The four primary therapeutic approaches used by Ash are: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): Focuses on identifying and modifying dysfunctional thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT): Teaches skills for emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): Focuses on accepting difficult emotions while committing to actions that align with personal values. Psychodynamic Therapy: Explores unconscious patterns and early life experiences to understand current behaviors. [ Google AI Overview* ]

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Our 'Intelligence' is embodied.
The whole of Hodges' model is / can be 
embodied - embedded within the SPIRITUAL.

My source: Electronic therapy - Machines of loving grace, The Economist, November 15th-21st, 2025. Vol. 457: #9474. pp.72-73.

 *"slingshot ai - what are the four therapeutic approaches used by ash?"

 

Previously: 'health' : 'ai' : 'parity of esteem' : 'foundation' : 'language' : 'embodied'

Book: Love's Labour by Stephen Grosz

They had loved and hated,

but they were still a couple, 

still doing love's labour ...

Luminous and necessary stories from the psychoanalyst's consulting room; on desire, heartbreak and learning how to love.

When it comes to love why do we find things so difficult? Drawing on over forty years of candid and surprising conversations with his patients, Stephen Grosz asks, what gets in the way of our falling in love? And what must we do to stay there? Penguin UK.

<>

'Ravi, a maths lecturer, is tormented by his wife Sonal's supposed infidelity, but won't look at the CCTV - even though that might reveal her to be innocent. This chapter has a sting in its tail when 19 years later Grosz is contacted by Sonal. She is dying of cancer and Ravi is cruelly neglecting her. Grosz feels that he missed a vital clue all those years ago, concerning Ravi's ingratitude and envy.

This moment of "failure" on Grosz's part forms an aspect of this small book's power. It shows that the psychoanalyst is not a machine, and the process is fallible. But it is also a testament to human complexity. When he hasn't understood the patient sufficiently, Grosz brings the case to his supervisor, and we, the reader, are witness to their exchange.' Life&Arts, FTWeekend.

Individual

|

      INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC =========================  MECHANISTIC      

 SOCIOLOGY  :    POLITICAL 

|

Group

love's labour

My source: Kathy O'Shaughnessy. The hard work of seeing ourselves. Books, Life&Arts, FTWeekend, 27-28 September 2025, p.11.

Stephen Grosz, Love's Labour

Iamge: https://cdn2.penguin.com.au/covers/400/9780701188979.jpg

Empathy - Relating, Knowing, Objects, Patterns ...

INDIVIDUAL

|

     INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL 

|

GROUP

"Logos is our capacity to separate ourselves from the surrounding world, making it into objects in order to recognize it objectively, reflect about it. Any fully developed human relationship needs both principles, the relating and the knowing. Knowing in this sense means the possibility of discriminating between the common ground and the difference of I and Thou. Without knowing, there is fusion or identity but not relationship between a separate I and a separate Thou." p.64.

"Recently a woman training to be an analyst came for supervision and brought with her for the first time a tape of an analytic session she had had with a woman patient of hers. To our amazement, in listening to this tape, we both had at certain times quite some difficulty in distinguishing her own voice from the voice of the patient. This happened mostly when the patient was talking very softly and obviously fighting to overcome feelings of shame. The candidate felt rather shocked at first and asked me whether she might have identified with the patient in an unhealthy way. I heard her interventions on the tape as being genuinely in tune to the atmosphere and situation of the patient at those moments, so I told her that to my mind she was responding in an empathetic way to her patient. It was apparent that the patient needed this kind of response, for later in the tape one could hear that the patient became more confident in exploring her feelings. I think the candidate reacted to the needs of her patient with a concordant countertransference reaction." p.38.

Jacoby, M. (1984) The Analytic Encounter: Transference and Human Relationship. Toronto: INNER CITY BOOKS.

In this text and other reading I can see a possible means as to how the concept of identity can be used between the Individual - Group (other).

To follow soon:

Book review iii. General Psychotherapy: Principles and Common Theoretical Aspects - Rediscovering Humanity

Paper: How social workers reflect in action and when and why they don’t [Mapped to h2cm]

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ---------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

The self - personhood Reflection (as core concept) has value and limitations Non-reflection to protect the self Unbearable anxiety psychoanalysis - findings defended nature of the self thinking & non-thinking 'suspended self-preservation' Self - Two perspectives - Service User emotional intelligence internal supervision intuition - improvisation Reflexive Helicoptering - metacognition Sexuality (form of bracketing-off of oneself)* lived experience of the senses RATIONALE

Theories of reflection Frameworks for reflection (reflective practice) physical / somatic effects of anxiety ethnographic study audio recordings Reflective practice demands that you learn from experience. It requires you to be self-critical. It expects you to analyse what you think, feel, and do... #When is it better NOT to reflect? 'Containment' 'splitting' risks (being completely non-reflective) experiences and the (mobile) body TECHNICAL

*limits capacity of some aspects of relational work  Social Work Practice Home visits Family home children and parents 'tacit knowing-in-action' Reflection in Practise Fieldwork - home, car SW composed when service users in distress, absorb their sadness, shame, fears, and at times their joy # Face-to-Face interviews Relationships: sexuality, gender offloading informally - office

Social Work / Clinical Case Supervision  offloading formally Two Local Authorities Management Supervision and Governance Child protection Power Organisational risk management Policies, Procedures Lone working... Influence in 'advocacy' [comment on twitter - see below] (as a Professional or 'Independent'?)

Harry Ferguson (2018): How social workers reflect in action and when and why they don’t: the possibilities and limits to reflective practice in social work, Social Work Education, DOI: 10.1080/02615479.2017.1413083

My source: Twitter
 

FROM: the couch TO: the courtroom | c/o BBC Radio 4

INDIVIDUAL

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic --------------------------------------- mechanistic 
 subjective --------------------------------------- objective

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

Inc. community - GROUP - the State  

Pain Individual   Vulnerability Psychological Trauma - Shock Therapy    Recovery     Closure motivation? - Catharsis - outcome? Psychoanalysts uncover truth Hidden Psychical Material Emotion  PTSD Forensic Psychiatry - Experts PURPOSES	Pain Events - Time True - Memories - False Accounts - Re-Living Rationality   Logic (Objective) Truth Analytic processes Physical Trauma - Shock PROCESS
From: War  Psychological  To: Domestic Trauma  'trauma' as a human and medical idea Reparation (psychological AND legal)? Public expectations Community Public Values PRACTICE	Magistrates uncover truth Law  Courts  Justice Adversarial System Closure - Compensation Victims of crime Psychiatric Reports Unconscious Responsibility POLICY

From the Couch to the Courtroom BBC Radio 4: 17 April 2017
Helena Kennedy QC asks if our legal system is becoming too influenced by the culture of psychotherapy.

The potential of Hodges' model as a generic conceptual framework has always been demonstrable through the distinction between the individual and the State. In this Radio 4 programme it is well worth also considering the diametric (potential) opposition of the person and their mental health (and therefore their physical state) as in applying the law in all aspects of healthcare and human welfare.

There are two references in the bibliography (sidebar) on the role of Hodges' model in forensic contexts.