Dear AI therapist…

Lately I've been experimenting with AI as a therapist or coach.

I give it very specific prompts and ask it to channel very specific methodologies to help me dig deeper and find insight.

Yesterday I found myself in a particularly agitated and confused state so I asked Claude AI to act like an internal family systems therapist for me.

It definitely worked. I got a lot more insight, I understood more of how I was feeling and what was triggering my agitation.

It just so happened that I had a session with my actual therapist later in the day, and the difference was stark.

I was exploring some old wounds around a longing to feel "chosen" or validated. The AI empathized with me, helped me understand my desire more and asked me questions to go deeper into it.

With my actual human therapist, I experienced a lot more than just insight. I felt like she cut through my noise and helped me see myself and experience myself differently. I could suddenly see the water I was swimming in and I had a choice to keep swimming in it or to choose different water.

It wasn't just about unpacking or exploring this longing and where it comes from. She cut straight through- this is a young part of me that's activated, and what that part needs is my attention and presence (with her support) so I can fully grieve. And by being with that part of me and grieving, I can release it and choose new waters to swim in. I can come back to my adult self, as it were.

Healing and transformation work, whether at the individual or the organizational level is deep, complex work. But it seems to me that change happens beyond the cognitive level. The bots can help us understand and unpack, but we need humans to actually feel seen, heard, felt and safe to move through our emotions.

And it's only when we move through our emotions that we become available to making new choices.

I see this in the leadership space all the time. We through new process and structure at problems, and they work great when there are no underlying politics and emotions involved. But when there are underlying agendas and intentions, the process just gets co-opted and abused to still achieve the same outcome. The only thing that unlocks that is a real (often courageous) conversation exploring what people need and where they're missing each other.

So will I be abandoning my chatbot therapist? Probably not. Some days, it really helps to have insight in order to calm my mind. But I will always privilege the human connection first, in a therapeutic context or otherwise.

We are wired to connect, relate and create together.

Let's do more of that! And leave the mundane things to AI.