AI Therapy: Experiments & Reflections #01

Today I felt listless and so decided to talk to someone: I typed my immediate, unvarnished and unedited thoughts into a standard web browser AI. I then asked that AI to respond the way a therapist might. Below is my original entry, followed by the AI therapist’s response.

My Original Entry:

Today I feel a bit numb. Not awful, not difficult, just a bit detached

Like I’ve taken a mild sedative and everything is one step removed

It’s not unpleasant to be here, but I don’t feel much

It’s uninspiring to be here, like nothing I do will have much of an impact on the world either way. It would be nice to have an impact on the world.

I wonder why I resort to numbness. What feeling, or thought, or way of being am I cutting myself off from? What could be so intolerable that I prefer to numb out and just plod around in a daze? Who would want to spend much time this way?

I notice patterns, like seasons... like every 6 weeks or so I have this need to become numb for a few days. Am I a bear? Hibernating in my cave? And why don’t humans formally hibernate? It makes such sense to me to recharge like they do, and yet we just keep battery running all year round: num num num, blip blip blip, non-stop non-stop.

I’m not sure what I feel today, or if I feel at all today. Maybe that’s ok for a while. I’ll come out of it when Spring arrives.

The AI Response:

"It sounds like you're experiencing a sense of detachment—neither pain nor joy, just a kind of distance from the world and yourself. You're noticing a pattern in how this feeling comes and goes, almost like a rhythm your body and mind follow every few weeks. That awareness is important.

You're also questioning the purpose of this numbness, wondering what it might be protecting you from or what deeper feeling it's keeping at bay. Those are thoughtful reflections. Sometimes, when emotions feel overwhelming or difficult to process, our minds find ways to shield us, even temporarily. Have you noticed anything in particular that happens before this state sets in? Or do you have any sense of what you might be needing during these times?

It also seems like you find some acceptance in this experience—you’re not fighting it, just observing it and allowing it to be. That’s an important perspective. You mention hibernation and the idea of rest, and it makes me wonder if there’s something your mind and body are asking for—perhaps a need to pause, to recharge, or to process something in a quiet way.

These moments of numbness can feel confusing, but they also tell us something. Exploring them with curiosity rather than judgment can help bring clarity. I wonder—how do you feel when spring arrives again? What shifts for you?"

My Reflections:

Reading back the AI’s words, I have a mixed response.

I like how it validated my feelings without trying to fix me or ‘make me feel better’. And I’m very impressed at how accurately it captured my sense of resignation along with my need for retreat.

Furthermore, the questions the AI asked me seem sound: inviting me to reflect further on my current thoughts, feelings and behaviours; to unpack deeper insight by inviting me to notice any patterns or triggers. In my modality - Transactional Analysis (TA) - we might say that the AI was using Empathic Enquiry and Specification to facilitate deeper understanding. And as any TA trainee will tell you, this isn’t as easy as it looks. So I’m impressed with the AI therapist in that sense.

However, with that said, I’m keenly aware that the AI could only respond to what I actually typed into the browser (or spoke into a mic); to what I could access via my cognition; that is to say, to those things about wich I am already conscious. While unpacking our conscious thoughts, feelings and behaviours can be very helpful, a whole other dimension of therapy (and arguably where deep change lies) involves revealing to ourselves those parts of us that we are not yet aware of: making the unconscious, conscious.

So while a skilled therapist may indeed use words similar to those chosen by the AI, alongside this, that same therapist will be watching their client and observing closely how their words land with that client. They may, for example, be noticing a slight change of breathing around certain words; or a change in body position and breaking of eye contact at the mention of certain ideas; an agitation of fingers coupled with a dilation of pupils as previously unrevealed unconscious parts are stirred.

And during all this – and this seems to me to be the rub of it - the skilled therapist will adapt what they are communicating in real time: modifying their tone of voice, their pace in response to the quantum level micro-responses within the client; responding even to their own inner sensations as they read those of their client.

Thus, an unpredictable dance of the unconscious unfolds between client and therapist. It is this very unpredictability – entirely unprogrammable – this quality that is key to the process of change. The trust we place in this elusive process leads the therapy beyond what could ever be typed into a browser – for if we could type it into a browser, it would already be conscious to us. And this alchemy, to me, seems beyond the capacity of any algorithm. For now, at least.

So what did you think of my AI therapist? Am I out of a job yet?