Can artificial intelligence replicate what therapists do? And if it can, what remains uniquely human about psychotherapy?
As AI transforms how we experience ourselves, form intimate relationships, and understand our professional identities, anxiety about its implications is both understandable and realistic. But anxiety need not lead to denial, panic, or retreat. It can also become a foundation for hope and active engagement.
In this webinar, psychoanalyst Todd Essig, PhD, explores the increasingly intimate relationships people develop with AI chatbots and their implications for psychotherapy. He examines relational AI as a clinical and cultural pharmakon, both remedy and poison. These technologies can help regulate emotions, reduce loneliness, and support reflection. They can also foster delusion, dependency, relational off-loading, isolation, and a flattening of inner life.
With AI therapy-bots on the horizon, Essig challenges us to consider a crucial distinction: Replicating therapeutic techniques is not the same as replacing the human relationship that gives psychotherapy its meaning.
Introducing the concepts of techno-subjunctivity and AI-fitness, Essig offers a framework for navigating this emerging relational territory with realistic anxiety, informed hope, and a renewed appreciation for the irreplaceable value of human love, care, and subjectivity.