When Will AI Replace Psychotherapy?

The question is deliberate. It's not about 'if', it's about when?

 Carl Rogers told psychologists and therapists almost 75 years ago, as Hippocrates told physicians about 2500 years ago, to heal themselves first, and that the patients and clients would know more about their condition than they ever would.  

 We know that these statements, somewhat exaggerated, are not completely correct, and yet they have a substantial underlying truth. I often hear that someone has been visiting a doctor or a therapist for the same condition for many years. Even if this is not deliberate on the part of the health specialist, is it ethical to make a client dependent and treat them as a source of revenue?

 I find this to be true of consultants, coaches, counsellors and such other specialists who seem proud that they have clients of long standing. Whatever for? Is their inability to resolve the client's disempowering issues a matter of celebration? Is the hapless client the fatted calf?

 There was a joke about a patient telling a therapist, 'You weren't there a while ago, just your recorder listening. Why don't I bring my recorder to talk to you next time?' What if this joke turns real, and more interestingly effective?

 Verbal and Vibrational Dialogue

 A respected forum carried a master coach's comment on why AI won't replace humans in coaching ever. They said, 'AI can decipher verbal dialogue, not the vibrational energy underlying it.' Sad to say, the coach was at one level overestimating the skills of coaches and underestimating the potential of AI. This truth would be relevant to any similar human intervention as that of a counsellor or therapist.

 I have supervised, mentored and assessed thousands of coaching conversations at various levels of competence. 80% of these are cognitive, transactional and superficial, addressing the verbal dialogue of what's being said. Some may go deeper into what may be called ontological and somatic explorations. I have rarely come across the 'vibrational' dialogue exploration that this master coach speaks of. I do agree that it exists, except that I haven't found many coaches with the ability to reach that space.

 This is why unwary, hapless clients are lured to ineffective therapists and coaches. They would be better off recording their conversations with an AI Agent.

 Vibrational AI

 Many of my colleagues and I have had coaching conversations with LLM based AI. If we prompt well, AI produces conversations and responses at what might be called mastery levels. Yes, they are still based on verbal language analysis, but identifying nuances of conversations, including emotional undertones from the semantics. Anyone can verify this if they have enough knowledge of coaching and AI.

 Many may not know this. AI can explore voice in terms of pitch and tone to identify emotions. I worked with neuroscientists and AI experts who had built a voice library to identify emotions in any conversation.  Many people do know that a brain cap with sensors can capture the state of emotions experienced in the brain. Video sensors are capable of identifying body movements and translating the body language into a dialogue. Even as you read this, AI can understand vibrational dialogue to quite some extent, though this may not yet be commercially available.

Energy Fields

 Reading energy fields is not yet a scientific process. Super-sensory powers of people claiming to read auras, see chakra energies, and such are merely claims to impress the gullible. I don't know of anyone who can read their internal chakra energies, let alone those of others.

Devices such as fMRI, PET, CAT, and other scans measure how energy is consumed by parts of the body. In. Very shortly, many of these may become inexpensive wearable devices, which can be read and interpreted by AI.

 Reflaction

Reflaction is Reflective Action. Oxford dictionary will feature this in 2030!

 Question yourself after familiarising yourself with prompts and experimenting with AI to see how well it can answer your psychological issues. Compare with what your therapist provides you. If you still believe that the therapist adds 'real' value, that is what works for you.

 The fact is that all knowledge, from books and other databases, and experience, is stored in AI databases now and accessed in seconds. Sure, if medication is involved, I too will seek a physician's advice. Physicians, too, will move to telemetry and AI-aided diagnosis soon.