Therapy online? Using AI as a therapist?
My perspective is that online therapy comes with upsides – accessibility and reach for people outside of the local area or preference to stay home and fit sessions into the day conveniently without travel time. But naturally, there is cost as well as benefit. Whilst it can be fast and easy for sharing information like documents, sharing screens (eg for activities with young people) can be a useful tool, a possible very understandable drawback for some is a distancing or feeling of restriction, being seen through a screen may feel somehow less than being seen in person or face to face. This is a very personal preference and an important consideration.
I notice how expectations on speed for replies and action are higher. Everything can be done faster and often on a bigger scale. This can create a sense of urgency at times that I believe feeds a very natural human tendency for anxiety. Not only are we rarely not accessible but we are also potentially visible in places where we might prefer anonymity or to be in solitude. Boundaries feel essential.
Age and development factors in. For those whose childhood was without the internet, it feels particularly important to understand that the younger generation have had a very different upbringing and experience of life in general. This touches every area of our lives. . Meeting people, making plans, getting around and travelling places with or without mobile maps, messages or instant ticket purchasing on my device.
Some of the steps to protect wellbeing online may be to create boundaries that work for you, literally ring fenced to be for set times only and notifications switched off. You might, for example, keep notifications silent and set “do not disturb” at night time.
Technology can be a useful tool for wellbeing – being able to connect and find supportive information more readily including soothing playlists, meditation guides and puzzles or creative activities for relaxation.
To be in this digital world, we grow wisdom through experience of how to navigate that environment. This is fast paced change, and change historically invites fear and wariness. Where there is fear and wariness, there is opportunity for curiosity and growth if we allow space for it.
With Artificial Intelligence (AI) as an example, conversations and views range from extreme disapproval and mistrust to excitement and promotion. I feel that a balance is the healthy middle ground. Avoiding entirely will not enable me to understand it. If I do not aim to understand AI and new technology then I am left without the opportunities of a potentially useful tool and risk being at the detriment of my own ignorance.
I know some of my clients use AI between sessions, they find it useful in this way and if it is brought into sessions, we can explore how and when it is useful and I would advocate, if asked, to remember that it is a tool, not a human (however adept it becomes at appearing to understand human behaviour).
I offer my perspective around AI use – to use it as any with any potentially healthy coping strategy might be used – mindfully and with awareness of what it can, and cannot, provide in meeting needs. Ease and access may often not equate to ethics.
To keep in mind that AI is mining for data, learning from our input, very well for most that may be a fair cost. Also to remember that AI responses are a perspective based very specifically on the snapshot of information that you input.
I also consider a potentially significant risk of harm to people mistaking the interpretation of AI as qualified and professional understanding. Not the extreme examples often cited about AI providing methods for self harm if asked (my experience is that it has become more sophisticated and protective than this) however, as sophisticated as AI has become, to engage and “feel understood” carries a high risk for vulnerable people.
We know as therapists how easily a client can interpret something through their own lens and might spot this, or at least have an opportunity to spot it, however with AI the ethical and intuitive lens is machine and not conscious. This humanity in counselling allows for the imperfection and nuance of being human.
AI is designed to have answers and to be agreeable, to keep you inputting information not to sit with silence or pause when appropriate. A good therapist will sense when it might be appropriate to gently reflect back to the client that perhaps they would like to take a moment to sit with something shared.
I don’t feel that it’s my place to advise or detract from the usefulness of this tool. I advocate for balance, and to check in that the use of AI is not creating isolation from others or separating someone from reality. The online world creates a type of reality that, to an extent, can feel preferable to the real world. This I continue to explore and widen my perspectives on, with the aim to understand and work with each of my client’s individual experiences.
Author: Claire Messenger NCPS Acc Reg
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