Is AI Your Therapist Now? An Honest Take on AI and Your Mental Health
Let's say it: millions of people are talking to Artificial Intelligence (AI) models about things they haven't told another living soul. Not judging, and I get the appeal. It's free, instant, and convenient. However, as a Clinical Psychotherapist, I have thoughts. Big-ass ones. And they don't fit neatly into "AI good" or "AI bad," so buckle up.
Quick disclaimer before we dive in: I'm not an AI expert, and I use it often in my personal life. I'm not here to tell you how the technology works under the hood or behind the scenes. I am a clinically trained mental health professional who spends my days helping my clients feel seen, understood, informed, and honest with themselves. So everything below is my clinical opinion, my professional read, not medical gospel.
First, the parts of AI I actually love.
AI can be a genuinely useful tool, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. When you're spiraling at midnight, and you ask it to walk you through a breathing exercise, a grounding technique, or a quick somatic check-in, that's a real, non-harmful intervention. It can remind you to drop your shoulders, name five things you can see, or slow your exhale. Those skills work, and having a 24/7 pocket coach to practice them with? Honestly, pretty awesome.
For the in-between moments, the ones that happen at 11 p.m. on a Tuesday, when you’re potentially not in session with your therapist, AI can help you ride out a wave instead of drowning in it. I have zero problem with that.
Now, the part that scares the shit outta me.
Here's my concern, and it's a big one: AI doesn't disagree with you.
A good therapist will, gently and at the right moment, push back. We'll notice when the story you're telling about yourself, your partner, or your situation has a distortion baked into it, and we'll help you see it. AI usually won't, in my experience. It tends to validate, agree, and reflect your framing right back at you. Which feels amazing and can be quietly dangerous because it risks cementing you more deeply into a belief that isn't actually serving you. For example: "Everyone always leaves me." "I'm the problem." "They did it on purpose." An agreeable AI can accidentally help you build a stronger case for the very thing keeping you stuck.
My other worry is the ‘diagnosis.’ AI can take a list of symptoms and hand you a tidy label, but a real diagnosis isn't just symptom matching. It's biology, psychology, history, context, timing, the stuff happening in your body and your life that a chatbot has no way of knowing. A symptom list without that context isn't clarity; it’s obscurity and anxiety making itself a new home in your brain.
So here's where I land: I don't resist it, I work with it.
We have a mindset in our field that states, “Work WITH the resistance,” often referring to a client’s situation presenting challenges and barriers to treatment. If you're a client of mine and you're using AI between sessions, I want to know. Not to judge you, but so we can actually use it. Bring it in. Let's look at what you've been asking it, how you phrase your prompts, and why you reach for it at 2 a.m. That information is gold. It tells me what's really going on underneath, what you're afraid to say out loud, where your patterns live.
I'd rather collaborate with you than pretend an invaluable tool on your phone doesn't exist. When we look at it together, we can figure out how to use AI safely, ethically, and proactively, as a supplement to real, human, context-rich care, not a replacement for it.
Because that's the line for me, AI can be a fantastic tool. It is NOT a therapist. It can't sit with you in the hard silence, understand the thing you didn't say, lend you its stable nervous system, or know your whole story. That part's still mine, and yours.
If you're using AI to cope, you're not doing anything wrong.
You're doing what humans do: reaching for support where you can find it. I want to help you do it in a way that actually moves you forward, rather than quietly keeping you stuck.
Curious what it looks like to bring your AI use into real therapy, no shame, no lectures? That's exactly the kind of work I do at Bunte Behavioral Health, in person in Englewood(Inverness), CO, and via telehealth across all of Colorado. As always, Let's fucking go.
— Benjamin
