AI and Psychotherapy | Should you use a chatbot for therapy

Recently I read two separate articles about AI and mental health treatment. They were from different sources and magically landed in my inbox on the same week. While I have resisted talking about AI and therapy, maybe there’s no better time than the present.

‍

THE POLARIZATION OF AI

Personally I am not very interested in AI. I enjoy physical books, paper crafting, long form writing. I also worry about the effects of not solving problems, doing research, and deep thinking and what that will do to my brain since I possess the Alzheimer’s gene. But I am curious about what each article had to say in relation to psychotherapy and mental health. AI is all anyone can talk about and it seems to be polarizing - either you use it and you like it OR you think it’s the downfall of man and you stay away.

As I read each article, what came to mind for me was the parts of psychotherapy that don't often get talked about. That what is healing about therapy is not the fancy coping skills we learn or the insights we discover along the way (remembering that insight alone does not create positive change in a person’s life). Good psychotherapy doesn't even rely on the therapist's background, education or experience (though those factors do help).

‍

WHAT HELPS IN PSYCHOTHERAPY

What is healing about therapy is the relationship we form with the therapist. How the therapist, a real person, listens to us. How they seek to understand us. How they extend compassion to us. How they nudge us to be more compassionate to ourselves. How our wounding was created in relationships and what is healing also occurs in relationships.

While I know you can ask Claude to speak gently to you or you can ask it to give you tough love, I wonder if it can replace the alchemy that happens when we sit with another person and we feel deeply seen.  When the therapist seeks to understand our innermost experience and holds up a mirror that communicates that we are not alone.

So much of our wounding as humans takes place in relationships. It is in relationships that we are misunderstood, that we are harmed, that we are hurt. It is in our earliest relationships where trauma occurs.

‍

THE HEALING CAPACITY OF RELATIONSHIPS

This is why the therapy relationship, a good one, holds the keys to our transformation.  It is also what makes therapy challenging, because if we have been hurt deeply in relationships, we may unconsciously resist allowing a therapist in to these tender areas. We may unknowingly resist healing in the form of a therapeutic relationship.

In my own personal therapy, none of the fancy things my therapist said were the key. None of her brilliant illuminations made the difference. It was her presence. Her acceptance. Her care and love for me. The way she grew to know me. The way she can tell just by hearing my voice how I am doing. The way that she has been a constant in my life. The years we have spent together. The way she has healed my mother wounds by being a “good enough” mother/therapist.

‍

Are we really expecting that AI can replace this? That it can touch these deeper parts of our souls and offer a similar salve?

A colleague told me that a friend had a disappointing experience with a therapist and so she went to ChatGPT when the therapeutic rupture occurred. She turned to a machine to help her rather than risking another emotional wounding. This makes logical sense. There is a level of protection that we can experience when we reach out for help in a safe but distant manner. Not to mention that many people report having a difficult experience with a therapist and they didn’t want to try again.

‍

IN DEFENSE OF MORE HUMAN CONNECTION

But I can’t help but wonder in this world that we live in, do we need less human connection? Less relationships? At a time when people continue to struggle with loneliness and a lack of friends? Do we really want to replace the therapeutic connection with a machine and remove the human element? Can we be brave to keep searching for the right therapist for us?

I think the world needs more connection, not less. We need more community, not less.

‍

Here are the two articles for reference so you can take a look.

https://www.thegoodtrade.com/features/ai-for-mental-health/

https://psyche.co/ideas/why-chatbot-therapists-cant-offer-what-we-need

‍