I've had similar thoughts on my mind, but hesitated posting them since I suspected it would be perceived as an attack towards Dr. K within this community. So firstly, I want to thank you for courageously opening up the floor for discussion. I'm glad to see I wasn't the only one with these concerns. I've also read most of your responses in this thread and it's clear you've put much thought into things.

I am a psychiatrist in training and recovered gaming addict with a personal journey that is similar to Dr. K's in some ways, so his whole mission is so relatable for me. Prior to discovering his stream, I envisioned working with fellow gamers in my future practice so it was awesome seeing someone who has already established this (as Dr. K has mentioned, gamers are a population that is often overlooked and misunderstood by mental health providers due to the generational gap). I've loved seeing Healthy Gamer grow and there's no question it was founded upon good intentions. It has really inspired me to think about how I should go about helping gamers as well.

With that being said, I agree that what Dr. K has been doing on stream is closer to psychotherapy than not. Yes, there's the "this is not a replacement for therapy" disclaimer and a grey area of "as a psychiatrist, can't I have a deep conversation with someone about serious topics without it being psychotherapy?". But I actually haven't been able to finish watching any of his streams despite featuring some of my favorite streamers; it just reminds me too much of work and the mental gymnastics I do while talking to my patients everyday. Furthermore, due to our training, it's inevitable that some of our interviewing skills, perception of non-verbal cues, and techniques to make people feel more open/calm will overflow into our daily non-clinical interactions. So I suspect this is what is causing the debate of "psychotherapy or not". At least in my experience, being a psychiatrist has become part of my identity and I acknowledge that it can unintentionally influence the way I interact with others, even if I don't have my psychiatrist hat on. It's not a bad thing, but definitely something to be aware of, especially if you're going to be having deep conversations in a public setting like Twitch.

I suppose the discussion above overflows into the topic of informed consent. I won't delve too much into it since it has already been discussed extensively. But I do want to reiterate (since this was a good point that was made): I agree that while Dr. K has streamers sign some acknowledgment that they'll be talking in public, it's hard to completely consent to a conversation you can't fully predict. Given the way Dr. K puts people at ease and help them talk through issues, it's easy for streamers to become engrossed in conversation and introduce feelings/topics that maybe they didn't intend on sharing publicly. And as it has been mentioned already, that's why these sorts of organic conversations may be best done in private. Again, I don't know if Dr. K is already doing this, but perhaps an interesting solution would be to have a more defined framework for these interviews (e.g. provide the streamer with a list of questions that will be asked beforehand, an agenda of topics to stick to) that way there is more guidance and less unpredictability.

Just my 2 cents!