Across the world, people are quietly replacing their therapists with AI chatbots, claiming ChatGPT is "the best therapist I've ever had — and it's free." I understand the appeal. When therapy is expensive, waitlists are long, and vulnerability feels terrifying, an always-available digital companion that never judges can feel like salvation.
But this trend is more dangerous than most realize. While AI can mimic therapeutic language and offer insights that feel profound, it cannot provide what healing actually requires: co-regulation between nervous systems, embodied attunement, or the transformative power of being truly seen by another human being. AI cannot assess suicide risk, recognize psychosis, or intervene in crisis. It reinforces avoidance patterns, enables cognitive bypass, and mistakes intellectual understanding for embodied integration.
As a therapist, I'm not anti-AI — it's a powerful tool when used alongside human therapy. But we're crossing a dangerous line when we mistake artificial empathy for real connection, or when we forget that healing happens in relationship, not in isolation. This article explores why AI feels therapeutic (but isn't), the hidden dangers of digital dependency, and why the discomfort of real therapy — with all its vulnerability and messiness — is precisely where the medicine lives.
Because the truth is simple: You are not a set of symptoms to be managed by efficient dialogue. You are a nervous system longing for resonance, a heart in need of witness, a human being who heals through relationship, not algorithms.