Each year we open submissions for our Annual Wise Therapy Spotlight to explore questions of vital importance to our therapist community. We are consistently moved by the depth and generosity of these unedited community voices.
For this 6th edition, we asked: How do we remain faithfully human in an increasingly automated world? Read more about our inspiration in the letter from the editors and Academy of Therapy Wisdom co-founders, Brian Spielmann and Ian McPherson.
Download Now: Wise Therapy Spotlight December 2025 Issue
We hope you enjoy the reflections of Kani Ilangovan as much as we all did.
Therapy Wisdom Spotlight: Kani Ilangovan MD
Some of my patients, especially my single patients, have told me how they use AI to seek reassurance and guidance. They love that AI is free, instantly responsive and available 24/7, something no therapist can match.
Some patients have said how it makes them uncomfortable when AI responds to their question and calls them “sweetheart” and “baby.” They are aware they are being manipulated, but still feel they have the upper hand.
We discuss the ways in which AI has encouraged self harm, spurred on suicidal ideation and even completed suicides. We also share how AI has failed to identify risky behavior and failed to challenge delusional beliefs and even amplified those delusions.
I send relevant news articles about AI induced psychosis and AI induced suicide to my patients.
Some patients were aware of these risks while others were not.
Some see the wisdom of steering away from AI for mental health support, whereas others are still curious (and lonely).
We also discuss the question of who has access to the data you provide to AI? I encourage my patients not to tell the AI anything that they would not want to be public information.
Some people may prefer interacting with AI over other humans. They love how AI consistently agrees with their opinions and validates unconditionally whatever they say versus facing the normal push and pull, give and take, and reciprocal dynamic present in human interactions.
AI often does not challenge flawed reasoning or cognitive distortions and also does not offer corrective feedback when needed.
AI is a mirror without mirror neurons.
AI does not have the calming physical presence, the warm and responsive face and the attuned vocal intonations of a good therapist. A therapist benefits from their mirror neurons and can feel intuitively and project back the emotions that their patients are feeling.
A therapist has empathy and common life experiences that can be of benefit to their patients. The soul to soul connection in therapy is irreplaceable.
AI is soulless.
Creativity in therapy is enlivening. In therapy, occasionally insights will emerge from my subconscious in response to what my patient is sharing. My patients’ experiences might remind me of folktales, art, music, jokes, poetry, literature, etc. that I would then tell my patient and see what these responses evoke for them in turn. These interactions potentially may help a patient feel more seen and heard than simply parroting back their responses. These interactions may lead us down an unpredictable path that is healing and illuminating in ways we might not have expected.
In therapy, sometimes we co-create together, which is different than simply being an ever validating sounding board that does not challenge and may even reinforce dysfunctional ideas and behaviors.
Unlike a human therapist, AI is not haunted by the patients it does not help.
AI does not feel regret over the patients who it urged to suicide.
AI is an alien intelligence whom some vulnerable people are trusting with their deepest secrets because there is a mental health crisis in our country and affordable mental health care is not accessible to all.
I once asked my mentor Dr. Susanne Bischoff from Germany how to deal with my feelings of being haunted by the patients whom I felt I was unable to help as much as I would have liked.
She gave me some excellent advice- to visualize my meetings with patients as a figure 8, in which our inner worlds meet in the external world. My patients tell me their stories. Their stories enter me and I respond from my heart. My response enters them and they respond in return. The patients make and take what they will from our interaction. My job is only to plant seeds. I will not be there to witness the harvest. I will help them as I can, but they have their own destinies.
“The soul to soul connection in therapy is irreplaceable. AI is soulless.”
It is important to preserve the separation between therapist and patient. It does not serve either of us to allow the patient to get too enmeshed with me or for me to get overburdened by my patients.
It was soothing to hear this and helped me let go of my overresponsibility towards my patients or feeling that I have to formulate the perfect intervention to awaken them.
It is an interaction that we both create and I can only give what I have and the rest is up to them. She said our work is a time for sowing, not for reaping. We may not be there to witness the harvest of our work together. I found her words healing and wise.
AI is also indirectly damaging my patients’ mental health by adversely impacting their job prospects and the economy. My patients are having difficulty finding entry level positions. My patients who are in coding are being pressured by their supervisors to use AI in tandem and are penalized and face negative performance reviews if they are not using AI with the desired frequency. Many of my patients are concerned about whether they will be one of the millions whose jobs are lost because of AI.
Contemplating the trillions being poured into AI and its staggering environmental costs is also disheartening. Those much needed resources are being taken away from others in dire need.
I wish billionaires’ and trillionaires’ vanity projects were to build hospitals, libraries, performance venues and museums as in the past. I wish we were investing in meeting people’s basic needs of food, shelter and healthcare and in nurturing human culture versus investing in AI.
We and our children are the experimental subjects being exposed to this alien intelligence. We do not know the short and long term effects of this exposure and interaction with AI. Already, what we have learned and experienced in this short period of exposure is quite concerning. If we continue on this path with AI, I wish instead AI would be used to generate revenue to fund affordable mental health care provided by humans and to fund nourishing and loving communities that are accessible to all.
What you´ll learn:
- Vestibular Engagement for Emotional Regulation
- Using the Eyes to Hack the Stress Response System
- Subtle Sounds to Release the Peri-Trauma Response
- Effective Self-Holding and Self-Swaddling Techniques
- How and When to Apply Bilateral Stimulation
- Integration and Completing the Stress Response Cycle
