Mental Health Treatment Centers: AI Visibility Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brand led the Mental Health Treatment Centers benchmark in October 2026, and by how wide a margin?
• Which treatment centers moved beyond normal variation since the July 2026 baseline?
• Was October 2026 a significant month for AI recommendations compared with earlier months?

McLean Hospital led the Mental Health Treatment Centers benchmark in October 2026 with valid recommendation coverage of 42.2%, up from 39.3% in September 2026 and down from 49.7% in July 2026. The gap to the next brand, Skyland Trail at 20.5% in October 2026, was 21.7 percentage points.

Discovery Mood & Anxiety recorded the largest coverage increase since baseline, rising from 0.0% in July 2026 to 2.7% in October 2026, a move of 2.7 percentage points that exceeded normal month-to-month variation. Skyland Trail recorded the largest coverage decline since baseline, falling from 41.1% in July 2026 to 20.5% in October 2026, a drop of 20.6 percentage points that moved beyond normal variation. Lindner Center of HOPE recorded the second-largest decline, falling from 24.0% in July 2026 to 7.6% in October 2026, a drop of 16.4 percentage points.

Five brands declined beyond normal variation over the full baseline-to-current window: Lindner Center of HOPE, Rogers Behavioral Health, Sierra Tucson, Silver Hill Hospital, and Skyland Trail. Discovery Mood & Anxiety was the only brand to rise significantly. No tracked brand posted a significant single-month move from September 2026 to October 2026, and the category leader held its position. October 2026 was a quiet month relative to the series as a whole.

The benchmark began with 594 prompt-surface observations in October 2026 and produced 185 qualified observations after qualification.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Qualified surface breadth counts the six canonical AI/search surface families with at least one qualified observation: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. The intermediate months, August 2026 and September 2026, stood at 203 qualified observations and 211 qualified observations respectively, with breadth of 6 in each month.

For the strategic interpretation of this benchmark, read CiteWorks Studio's analysis of How AI Search Is Recommending Mental Health Treatment Centers

Research Scope and Qualification

Questions This Section Answers

• How many collected prompt-surface observations qualified for the public benchmark?
• Why is the qualified benchmark denominator much smaller than the raw collection universe?

The public benchmark is narrower than the raw collection universe by design.

Brand-level percentages use the qualified observations as the public denominator, not the raw collection. See AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology for the full qualification process.

Current Brand Standings

Questions This Section Answers

• Which treatment centers rank highest on valid recommendation coverage in October 2026?
• How do presence rate and recommendation coverage differ across the tracked brands?
• Which brands convert presence into valid recommendations most effectively?

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is mentioned in any capacity
• Valid recommendation coverage: share of qualified observations where the brand appears in a valid recommendation shortlist
• Top-three rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is ranked in the top three positions
• Rank-one rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is the first recommendation
• Net sentiment: balance of positive over negative mentions among observations where the brand appears

For formulas and denominator rules, see AI Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions.

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Questions This Section Answers

• Which treatment center recorded the largest recommendation coverage gain since baseline?
• Which center recorded the largest recommendation coverage decline?
• Did McLean Hospital's leader position change across the measurement window?

No one-month move from September to October 2026 exceeded normal variation. McLean Hospital rose from 39.3% in September 2026 to 42.2% in October 2026, while Silver Hill Hospital moved up from 16.1% to 16.8% over the same period. The Menninger Clinic also edged up from 18.0% to 20.0% in that one-month window. Sierra Tucson moved down from 11.8% to 10.8% and Skyland Trail from 20.8% to 20.5%.

Largest Increase: Discovery Mood & Anxiety

Discovery Mood & Anxiety rose from 0.0% valid recommendation coverage in July 2026 to 2.7% in October 2026, a move of 2.7 percentage points that moved beyond normal variation. The brand's rise is the only significant gain in the benchmark. Presence rate moved from 0.0% in July 2026 to 4.3% in October 2026, and top-three rate reached 2.2% in October 2026 from 0.0% in July 2026.

Largest Decline: Skyland Trail

Skyland Trail fell from 41.1% valid recommendation coverage in July 2026 to 20.5% in October 2026, a drop of 20.6 percentage points that moved beyond normal variation. Coverage declined in each of the three months since baseline. Presence rate fell from 47.4% in July 2026 to 25.9% in October 2026, and top-three rate declined from 33.7% to 18.4% over the same window.

Category Leader: McLean Hospital

McLean Hospital remained the category leader in October 2026 at 42.2% valid recommendation coverage, down from 49.7% in July 2026, a decline of 7.5 percentage points that remained within normal variation over the full window. McLean Hospital also led on presence rate at 54.6% and rank-one rate at 23.8% in October 2026. The brand's coverage path across the series was 49.7%, 45.3%, 39.3%, then 42.2% in October 2026, a one-month recovery within the normal band.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brands appear most often in the top three AI recommendations?
• Why do some brands convert top-three placements into rank-one recommendations more often than others?

Placement data shows how prominently brands appear when recommended. McLean Hospital led on top-three placement at 39.5% in October 2026, with Skyland Trail at 18.4% and Silver Hill Hospital at 14.1%. The Menninger Clinic also reached an 11.9% top-three rate in October 2026.

Similar proximity to the top can still produce different first-position outcomes. McLean Hospital converted a 39.5% top-three rate into a 23.8% rank-one rate, while Skyland Trail converted an 18.4% top-three rate into an 8.6% rank-one rate.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

Questions This Section Answers

• What share of qualified observations are brand recommendation queries?
• Are pricing and multi-brand comparison queries represented in the current benchmark?

All qualified observations in each month fell into the Brand Recommendation class.

The current public series measures brand recommendation discovery and does not yet contain qualified observations in the empty classes. August 2026 recorded 203 qualified observations and September 2026 recorded 211 qualified observations, all within the Brand Recommendation class.

Historical Measurement Record

Questions This Section Answers

• Who led the benchmark in each month from July to October 2026?
• How did the number of qualified observations change across the measurement window?
• Which brand consistently recorded the largest coverage movement?

McLean Hospital held the leader position in every month of the series while its coverage fell. Skyland Trail recorded the largest coverage movement in every month.

Top 10 Cited Domains

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domains received the most citations across AI platform responses?
• How prominent are treatment centers' own websites among the most-cited sources?
• Are citations concentrated among a few domains or spread across many?

Across all AI platform responses in this measurement period, the benchmark observed 4,378 citations drawn from 1,262 unique domains.

Citations are broadly distributed rather than concentrated in a few domains. The top 10 domains together account for a combined share well below a quarter of all citations, spread across 1,262 unique domains. Five tracked brands' own domains appear in the top 10, including rogersbh.org, skylandtrail.org, discoverymood.com, mcleanhospital.org, and newporthealthcare.com, indicating that official treatment-center sites carry meaningful citation weight in this vertical. Directory, review, and reference sources also feature prominently, led by google.com, youtube.com, en.wikipedia.org, and psychologytoday.com, alongside the treatment directory recovery.com.

Evidence and Source Layer

The benchmark is built from prompt-level observations that retain the query, AI/search surface, answer, brand outcome, recommendation placement, sentiment, and, where exposed, citations or attributable evidence sources. Source presence is evidence about the information environment, not automatically proof that the source caused the recommendation.

Scope Boundaries

• This public benchmark does not measure market share or attributable sales.
• It does not capture every possible AI response, organic-search ranking, or social mention volume.
• It does not cover private or sponsored channels.
• It does not establish causality from a metric movement alone.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Visibility Market Discovery Index tracks how AI-powered search and assistant surfaces discover, mention, and recommend brands and organizations in response to real user queries. The Mental Health Treatment Centers benchmark covers ten tracked brands across ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode.

• AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Research Standards
• Modeled AI Visibility Authority Value

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