Dr. Steve A Johnson is a psychotherapist, university teacher, international supervisor, and researcher, with specialties in areas including addiction, trauma, and neuropsychology. Across his work, one challenge remains the same: how to share complex information clearly with more people without stretching his time even further.
Today, HeyGen has become part of how Steve solves that problem.
He uses AI video to introduce lessons to university students, give clients techniques they can practice between sessions, translate material for professionals he supervises internationally, standardize research instructions, and create content for digital mental health experiences.
"HeyGen has just become a great intersection between how I can disseminate that information," Steve said. "It really helped me in a precise way. It handles the jargon well, and it just gets right to the point."
Making complex ideas easier to understand
At the university level, Steve is currently teaching five courses, a significant workload that leaves little time for traditional video production.
He uses HeyGen to create a five- to 10-minute video at the beginning of each week that summarizes what students are about to learn. When a particularly difficult concept comes up, he can add another video during the week to explain it before moving on.
"Students absolutely love it," Steve said.
Video has become useful outside the classroom. Steve creates videos demonstrating techniques his psychotherapy clients can use between sessions. Clients still receive written material, but many also prefer having a video they can watch.
The format lets Steve distill complex information into something more direct without repeatedly delivering the same explanation himself.
"My students don't care," Steve said of using AI video. "They just like that I can summarize things. Same thing with my clients. I can get right to the point and help make changes in their life for the better."
Replacing hours of production with a simpler workflow
Before HeyGen, creating that volume of video wasn't practical.
Steve experimented with several tools and workflows, including recording audio separately and using Zoom. Producing a single video could take hours, particularly when he needed to redo portions of a recording.
Translation added another challenge. There wasn't a fast way to create high-quality versions in other languages without introducing more tools into the process.
"I was taking three, four, five different kinds of platforms to do what I do," Steve said. "With HeyGen, it’s one platform."
His workflow today is much simpler. Steve writes a script, edits it, brings it into HeyGen, and creates the video.
That efficiency has made video practical even while teaching five university courses.
"It would take me hours sometimes to do one, and then I'd have to redo and redo," Steve said. "It drastically reduces the amount of time."
Sharing expertise across languages and borders
Steve's work also extends beyond the United States. He supervises professionals internationally, including people in Russia, India, Pakistan, and other countries.
With HeyGen, he can translate his videos so professionals can receive information in their own languages while preserving technical terminology.
Steve was particularly interested in whether the translations could handle the specialized language required for his neuropsychology work. After asking Russian-speaking colleagues about the quality, he was impressed by their response.
"It sounds just like we talk. And even on the technical language," Steve recalled.
He also uses HeyGen in research to introduce instruments and assessments. Instead of relying on different people to explain a study to different groups, Steve can create one video that ensures participants receive the same instructions.
"It gets uniformity across those videos so that all the people in the research project are hearing the same things," he said.
Making his expertise available 24/7
Steve is also using HeyGen to take his expertise beyond appointments and classrooms.
He creates digital mental health experiences that use short videos to help people work through specific challenges, including reducing conflict between couples. HeyGen videos can sit directly inside those experiences, giving people access to Steve's guidance when he isn't personally available.
"It's helping people 24/7. I don't have to be there," Steve said.
The content is also creating unexpected opportunities. After seeing videos from Steve's Psychology of Evil course, people approached him about turning his expertise into a book.
He has now received two book offers that he's considering.
Meanwhile, Steve is revisiting older content on his YouTube channel, taking scripts from videos created years ago and rebuilding them with HeyGen. He says the refreshed videos improve the quality of his library, give older ideas new life, and attract additional views and channel members.
For Steve, the biggest impact is ultimately freedom. By spending less time producing and repeating information, he has more time to explore new areas of treatment and find new ways to help people.
"It gives me freedom to go explore some areas that I haven't had time to explore," Steve said. "It's allowed me to experiment and throw that net wider so I can try to help other people with other conditions."
