Why AI therapy tools may misunderstand therapy.
AI can be astonishingly useful.
It can help people think.
Reflect.
Journal.
Organise.
Prepare.
Articulate.
Spot patterns.
Find language.
I use it myself.
So this is not an anti-AI post.
But I do think many AI therapy tools risk misunderstanding therapy because they misunderstand the human being.
Cognitive psychology has shaped much of our culture.
We talk about thoughts.
Beliefs.
Schemas.
Predictions.
Mental models.
Narratives.
Meaning-making.
All of that matters.
But human development is not only cognitive.
The cognitive model is especially attractive to rational psychologists, rational founders and rational programmers because it makes human difficulty look more computational than it really is.
Faulty belief.
Faulty prediction.
Faulty code.
Rewrite the code and the person changes.
Sometimes that is partly true.
But only partly.
Human beings are not broken software.
We are living bodies.
Feeling bodies.
Relational bodies.
Developmental bodies.
Bodies shaped by rhythm, touch, shame, safety, threat, hunger, sleep, movement, voice, belonging and time.
Even emotion is often simplified too much.
We sometimes talk as if there are a small number of core feelings.
Fear.
Anger.
Sadness.
Joy.
Disgust.
Shame.
Love.
But real human feeling is vastly more textured than that.
There are countless human feeling-states.
Many do not have names.
The feeling of being subtly unwanted.
The feeling of being watched but not seen.
The feeling of trying not to need too much.
The feeling of being almost safe.
The feeling of wanting comfort but expecting humiliation.
The feeling of being with someone kind while your body still prepares for attack.
These are not just “thoughts”.
They are states.
And good therapy often works with states before they can be fully named.
That is where many AI tools may struggle.
They may help with what the client can say.
But therapy often depends on what the client cannot yet say.
What the therapist notices before the client knows it.
The slight collapse in the body.
The smile that covers despair.
The apology before a need.
The breath held before anger.
The shame that appears before language.
The grief hidden inside competence.
The feeling just over the horizon of awareness.
That is part of depth psychotherapy.
Not mind-reading.
Not magic.
But trained, relational, embodied attention.
AI may help people reflect between sessions.
It may support preparation, journalling, structure and language.
That can be valuable.
But if therapy is reduced to insight, prompts, articulation, reframing or better self-explanation, we will build shallow tools for deep problems.
Because proper therapy is not only helping people say things more clearly.
It is helping them become more able to feel, regulate, relate, grieve, repair, choose, set boundaries, tolerate shame and remain themselves under pressure.
AI has a place.
An important place.
But it needs to be built on a deep enough model of what being human actually is.
Not just cognition.
Not just code.
Not just words.
A whole human life.