Most of the “A.I” being talked about right now is actually Large Language Models (LLMs). Basically: software trained on a monumental amount of text scraped from the internet. They’re not conscious. They’re not “wise”. They’ve never had a crappy day, never felt grief, never sat with a friend through heartbreak. They are systems that predict (pretty well!) the next best word in a sentence based on everything they’ve digested.

So let’s be clear: they’ve experienced nothing.
You, as a human therapist? You’ve experienced life. You’ve hurt, healed, held space for people in real pain. You’ve sat through the long silences, you’ve suffered the anxiety and all the emotional and somatic sensations that come with it. That alone puts you in a totally different league.

Now, this isn’t to say A.I isn’t impressive. Some of it is bloody clever, frighteningly so. It can write succinct summaries, throw out reflections, and even sound empathic all in a matter of seconds. It’s fast, it’s shiny, and it feels competent. But that’s the trick, isn’t it? The language is convincing, so we assume the “mind” behind it must be too. Guess What?: there’s no mind behind it. Just clever math’s and logic.

None of these systems are forcing anyone to take their advice. You have autonomy to shut your laptop and carry on being the powerful, experienced human you are. Let’s not forget these tools are built off the very same human wisdom, content, that we put out into the world. It's just regurgitating it. Faster, sure. But it’s still chewing on leftovers of Human endeavor and knowledge.

Could A.I-based tools help people who struggle to access therapy? Possibly, and are doing so, especially in structured, evidence-based approaches like CBT. That’s not to be dismissed. It might serve a purpose for someone somewhere, and that’s okay. But let’s stop pretending this means human therapists are going the way of the dinosaur from an A.I shaped meteor. If a person who wanted to engage A.I (or any part of the internet in fact!) instead of seeking a therapist, well, they were unlikely to do that anyway so what have you lost?

You can’t replicate the complexity of the human brain. You can’t program in the weight of a glance, the ache behind a pause, or the grounding power of simply being with another person who gets you. You, as a competent therapist know the power of that silence in those moments, A.I can’t replicate that power.

LLMs don’t sit with you in a room and feel the energy shift when you finally say the thing you’ve never said out loud. They don’t hold silences. They don’t smile. They don’t feel disappointment or pride. They just sound like us. That’s it.

Being a therapist is being human first. Always has been. Always will be.

We might be at a watershed moment with A.I/LLM’s and yes, they’ll have some impact. But so did the internet. Remember when people said it would destroy the high street overnight? It changed things, no doubt, but the businesses that adapted survived. The ones that collapsed? A lot of that came down to poor leadership and mis-management not just technology. Same principle here, albeit a simplistic one, I just want my therapeutic colleagues to take a step back and reflect, just for a moment. Be kind to yourselves as we would say to our clients.

So sure, things are shifting. But don’t lose your head. You’ve got something A.I will never have, lived experience, presence, humanity.

Have a bit of faith in that.
You’re not obsolete.

Al