No Robots Here

I’ve been seeing more and more people talk about how much more helpful AI has been to them than any therapist they’ve seen.

Reddit threads boast about finding more healing in one chat with ChatGPT than they found in years of therapy.

Social media posts encourage people to use AI for support, comfort, and tools for better health.

And even in the world of therapists, more clinicians are using AI for note-taking, website building, and recording sessions.

I’m not here to state categorically that none of this is helpful in some way.

If you’ve found AI to be useful to moving through your life with more ease, who am I to say it’s bad?

What I do want to state definitively here is that AI is not going to have a place in how I do therapy, ever.

Of course I want people to have access to tools and support, especially when most AI is still free and much more easily used than finding a therapist, scheduling sessions, building a relationship, and spending your hard-earned time and money to do all of that…all while there is often discomfort that we have to sit with before things feel more sustainably better.

And also.

I find that it’s still vital that we approach AI with curiosity, skepticism, and caution.

Even not related to mental health, there are so many concerns about this technology.

AI is causing horrific damage to the environment, it’s draining finances and continuing to funnel it toward the top 1%, and it’s costing jobs not only in tech and engineering, but also in so many other fields including creative fields where the billionaires continue to try convincing us that we don’t need humans to make art (the absurdity would make me laugh if it wasn’t so devastating).

And the impact on mental health definitely has not been as profound as we’re told to believe.

There have been numerous stories that have come out in the last year around the use of AI and how, while it started out to seek support, it was a piece of several people choosing suicide as the ultimate way out of their pain.

Do people take their lives when in active therapy? Of course. And also, as a therapist, reading these stories still terrifies me because of how AI tends toward confirmation and comfort without having the human element to offer nuance and hope beyond the torment.

Therapy with a human does take longer than a brief ChatGPT conversation. It can be more winding, it costs more money, and it can be more uncomfortable. I’m not here to convince anyone otherwise.

And also, a part of what makes the therapy room so transformative is the human element—the relationship. The way that the therapist holds the vast experiences of the client, attunes to them, offers a safe and healthy attachment.

Therapists will never be perfect. I actually don’t think perfection is necessary, because that’s not realistic to how our relationships will go. None of us will do things perfectly. We will all make mistakes, even if they’re small, repairable ones.

So much of our pain we’ve experienced over our life has been contained within relationships with others, and so engaging in a therapeutic relationship where the clinician works diligently to always offer the most supportive care to you, and engages in real acknowledgment and repair when needed…this can be so incredibly powerful.

We understandably crave the fastest, most direct route to feeling better. Of course we do. And that’s not always how growth is going to look.

But capitalism, which touts the value of constant innovation for innovation’s sake, encourages urgency. A streamlined approach. Easy answers. Black-and-white thinking.

Our humanity just isn’t built for that.

If you’ve found healing or support with AI, like I said, I’m not here to tell you that you haven’t. And I absolutely understand how the accessibility piece alone could make this technology so useful.

I do encourage continued mindful awareness around how AI is showing up (or not showing up) for you, just as I’d encourage that about any new fad that seems useful and also holds some potential drawbacks.

And, if you’ve found the increasing AI to be scary, or harmful to your job prospects, or if you’ve felt concerned that your therapist may also begin using technology that doesn’t align with you…

…in my work, in my relationship with clients, and in how I move through the world, I commit to you to remain fully, 100% human.

To me, that’s the least I can do.