AI and Therapy: Bridge or Substitute?
Years ago I wrote my master’s thesis about a specific problem: the gap between when a new technology arrives and when we actually understand its impact.
That gap is structural. It’s not about ignorance or carelessness — it’s about the speed at which technology moves versus the much slower pace at which research, ethics, and lived experience catch up. I argued then that this gap tends to produce two opposite failure modes. Some people embrace new technology uncritically, swept up in its novelty and potential. Others resist it entirely, out of fear or a sense that it threatens something important about the way things should be done.
Neither response is particularly useful. And neither is based on a clear-eyed look at what’s actually happening.
I was writing about online counselling at the time. But I could write the same paper today about AI.
I was recently interviewed by the Squamish Chief about AI as a mental health tool — something I’m seeing come up more and more in my work. Clients are using it. Some in ways that are genuinely helping them. Some in ways that are causing problems. And most people, when they talk about it, land somewhere in one of those two camps: either it’s revolutionary and democratizing, or it’s dangerous and no substitute for real human connection.
Both of those things can be true. That’s what makes it complicated.
Here’s where I’ve landed, for now.
What AI can actually offer
There are real benefits. AI can give people a space to try things out — to articulate something they’ve been struggling to put into words, to rehearse a difficult conversation before having it with a real person, to feel heard without fear of judgment.
For some people, that neutral space builds confidence. It can help make sense of a lot of swirling thoughts. It can offer a kind of low-stakes practice ground for expressing yourself.
And for people who can’t access therapy — because of cost, waitlists, or geography — it can offer something when nothing else is available. That matters. It mattered when I was writing about online counselling in 2009, and it matters now.
What it can’t replicate
Here’s what I keep coming back to though.
Real human relationships are supposed to have friction. Disappointment. Moments where the other person doesn’t respond the way you hoped, or misunderstands you, or has needs that don’t align with yours in that moment.
AI doesn’t do any of that. It’s endlessly patient, endlessly validating, endlessly accommodating. And that’s precisely the problem.
Because it’s the friction of real connection — worked through, not avoided — that deepens it. When a misunderstanding gets repaired, when a difficult conversation lands somewhere unexpected, when someone surprises you by caring more than you thought they would — those moments are what build real intimacy and trust.
AI can’t give you that. And if it becomes a substitute for real connection rather than a bridge toward it, it can actually make human relationships harder. You can start to expect a smoothness from people that people will never provide. And then real human contact starts to feel like too much work.
The question worth asking
I’m not here to tell you AI is good or bad. I genuinely don’t think it’s that simple — and nearly two decades of watching technology arrive faster than our understanding of it has only confirmed that for me.
What I’d invite instead is honest attention to your own experience: how is this actually impacting you?
Is it helping you feel more capable of connecting with the people in your life? Is it a bridge — something that helps you process or prepare and then sends you back out into real relationships?
Or is it becoming a place you go instead? Is it making real people feel like too much effort by comparison?
There’s no universal answer. But cultivating a stance of critical curiosity — neither uncritically rejecting nor uncritically embracing, just paying honest attention to your own experience — is at least one way to navigate a gap that isn’t going to close anytime soon. Technology will keep moving faster than our understanding of it. That, at least, seems certain.
Jill Koehler is a Registered Clinical Counsellor and Approved Clinical Supervisor (RCC-ACS) in private practice at Communicating Well in Squamish, BC. She works in person in Squamish and online across British Columbia — with individuals navigating anxiety, trauma, and relationship patterns, and with therapists seeking supervision and consultation. communicatingwell.com
