Recently, artificial intelligence (AI) has stormed the world as the latest buzz of innovation, technology, and efficiency. Computer learning has surpassed our earliest imaginations, yet the growth of such technology has outpaced our ethical and humanistic considerations. As a solution to the broken mental health system in the United States, tech companies have embraced AI to provide therapy to the masses. Can AI be your therapist? While AI therapy sounds promising and exciting, I do not believe AI mental health support will replace traditional psychotherapy. The strengths of AI (logic, reasoning, organizing, researching) cannot match the humanity of a psychotherapist, nor fully grasp the human experience. Why? Because, well, it’s a computer.
The Importance of the Therapeutic Relationship
A core tenet of effective psychotherapy is a strong, trusting, friendly rapport with your therapist. This is especially true in modern relational therapy, where the therapeutic relationship serves as a microcosm of the client’s interpersonal dynamics beyond the therapy room. In human-to-human interaction, one can feel truly heard, seen, and understood in their lived experience. The human experience is inherently subjective, and psychotherapy creates space for nuance, contradiction, and disorganization. However, in human-to-computer interaction, there is an attempt towards an “objective” stance, which is not entirely therapeutic.
Read more about relational therapy.
The therapeutic relationship is naturally and inherently healing. As humans, we are social creatures. We rely on group identity, community, and other relationships to remain regulated and fulfilled. In fact, we are wired this way. Per polyvagal theory, one of the most effective ways to soothe the autonomic nervous system is coregulation. Coregulation is when a dysregulated individual relates to a grounded, compassionate other and begins to calm. When we feel anxious, panicked, or overwhelmed, we naturally reach for others.
The most impactful moments of therapy are not the cognitive challenges, or the coping skills, psychoeducation, or even the venting. The most impactful moments are those of shared humanity, of emotional catharsis, of celebration in healing, of compassion, and empathy. All of which are not fulfilled by artificial intelligence.
Your Therapist is Human
In traditional psychotherapy, your therapist is another human who feels the very same emotions as you. In fact, your therapist has likely struggled with similar unpleasant experiences in life, such as grief, loss, heartbreak, conflict, failure, or depression. This resonance is fundamental to empathy, which is more than just compassionate words. It is a felt sense that another understands how you feel, cares for you, and feels in the presence of your suffering.
Lived Experiences
Therapists also use their own lived experiences to shape therapy. While we cannot read minds, we utilize our lived experience to intuit what a client may need given their presenting concern. When appropriate, therapists may “self-disclose” a personal experience that echoes your own. This intervention may resolve a feeling of “unbearable aloneness” and help you feel connected to others. In doing so, the therapist also works to instill a feeling of hope and determination, rather than a lonely hopelessness or despondence. While AI may express words of understanding and compassion (listen), it does not personally relate to, nor empathize with, your lived experience.
Attunement
Additionally, therapists attune to their clients. During a session, therapists both observe the client’s experience (thoughts, emotions, behaviors, etc.) as well as their own reaction to the client. This attunement goes beyond the content shared; therapists are trained to track somatic “tells,” shifts in affect, and hold nuance in the client’s experience. For example, when a client is talking about a breakup, a therapist may observe the client’s anxiety (fidgetiness, rapid speech, avoiding eye contact, etc.), while also noticing their own sadness and anger.
The therapist then utilizes their own attunement and emotionality to move the client towards the potential of feeling angry or sad, and away from the protective state of anxiety. This emotional attunement allows the therapist to understand, recognize, and respond to the client’s experience in a way that is validating, empathetic, and connecting. Hence our motto: feel, connect, transform.
AI is Good at Logic and Reasoning
Artificial intelligence is good at finding logic, reasoning, and checking facts. AI is trained on various sources to approximate the “right” response to your requested need. For AI to respond appropriately and usefully, one needs to be explicit, exact, and direct in their request, which is incredibly challenging when it comes to processing a nuanced, dialectic, emotional state. Even if you are acutely aware of your need, the response from AI is heavily cognitive and intellectual.
This may seem helpful in rationalizing anxiety or challenging your depression, but what about when you need true compassion and empathy? What about when your anxiety actually carries wisdom? What if a history of trauma drives your symptoms more than your current circumstances? While AI can meet a need, rarely does it capture the nuance and care needed to improve our mental wellness and truly heal.
Current accessible uses of AI, such as ChatGPT, rely on text and the written word to convey messages. For many tasks, such as rewording emails, grammar checks, or even asking for movie recommendations, this works very well! However, when it comes to AI mental health support, text is incredibly limited. A pivotal component to most modern therapies, especially the relational and experiential approach we utilize at myTherapyNYC, is emotion.
Read more about experiential therapy.
A common defense against feeling emotionality is logic, reasoning, and other left-brained strategies. Thus, leaning on AI for mental health support will only strengthen these defenses, rather than challenge you to move past these and feel your emotions with a trusted, safe other. People say that AI is “objective” as a good, beneficial thing, but to therapists, your subjective experience is incredibly important. Relying on AI for mental health support encourages avoidance of emotional intimacy by fostering intellectualization and cognitive approaches. AI therapy bots have been introduced to the market, but barely studied, and the results are questionable. Thus, the strengths of AI are actually limitations when it comes to healing and capturing our full lived experiences.
The Heart of Therapy
AI is an exciting, innovative tool that is changing the world we live in at a rapid pace. However, at the end of the day, AI is not human: it is artificial. A core tenet of all psychotherapy is the therapeutic relationship, which depends on human-to-human interaction. Healing begins with compassion—real, human, felt empathy. Without this, you will remain feeling alone and overwhelmed in your experience: a void that technology cannot and should not fill.
Do you want to explore AI use in therapy? Reach out to myTherapyNYC to find out which of our therapists would be a good fit for you!
Have you used AI for mental health support? Join the conversation in the comments below!
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1 comment
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