Therapists lead with your heart, that is the only way.
I’ve just returned from two weeks of volunteering for our Mindful Adventures walking retreats in the Himalaya. Gorgeous mountains, dense jungle, people singing and dancing, strong people carrying loads, big smiles, plus the open hearts of our French guests. Humans are beautiful!
Landing back in Aus, my heart was open and ready for work, and then the AI onslaught shocked me.
AI therapy tools: A friend sent me a link with my favourite therapy turned into a whole bunch of AI tools for 47 bucks. Enshittification at its best, so no, I won’t bother to hyperlink it. It said you can be an ACT expert with a bunch of crappy tools and a few dollars. Good grief. I’ve spent the past couple of years pushing back against therapy that is moving toward bots, AI, algorithms, data points, and such.
Therapy is about humans helping humans. Hold on to that.
Next, a human was replaced with an AI mentor. My creative writing mentor program emailed to say it was being restructured. Lovely ‘Sarah’ was no longer available to mentor my creative writing. But, good news, they said, I would have a senior publishing executive mentor me. But…….that turned out to be plugging my creative writing into an AI reviewer and spitting out a report. Ugh. AI for creative writing?!? No way.
I quit.
Then, a shining light arrived in my inbox this morning as I read about young people leading the way towards being human and away from AI. For two decades, I’ve worked with young people and always admired their ability to call BS on us older folks. Sara Wilson’s blog describes how Gen Z loathe AI and are going analogue. The net rating for AI is minus 44.
Gen Z are turning towards vinyl records, print books, book clubs, paper stationery (oh that love of new stationery! be still my heart!). They’re swapping social media for lunch dates. Smart phones for dumb phones. Libraries are back! I’ll let you read Sarah’s Substack for more inspo.
Gen Z are exhausted by the tech revolution.
As a therapist, I am exhausted by AI too. But do not despair. We will be needed, and need to excel at the therapeutic relationship. That’s the tough kind of relationship, where you hold a mirror up to the client to see their behaviour in session, gently yet boldly guiding them toward new ways of responding to their world. Not shoving a worksheet under their noses.
And, the best part of the week? Being with humans. I met with two groups of warm-hearted therapists in our Therapist Adventures program. The first group has spent a year working together, ending with open hearts and a shared joy at finding like-minded peers as they work toward becoming skilled human therapists. The next group are just starting out, still getting to know each other and dipping their toes in. But oh, they all care about being the best human therapist they can be. And of course, there are the clients I serve, and I try to help them by being the best I can be.
So, my dear therapists, this is a call for us. In therapy, in supervision, in community, be wary of how much we let AI interfere with our most important task of becoming skilled therapists.
Be a human so you can help another human who is suffering.
Just be a human.
I've turned the comments on. Please let me know how you are going with AI and humanity.
Warmly, Louise
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