AI and Therapy: Answering your Questions

Hello everyone, welcome to the Said in Therapy Podcast. Have you ever considered going to therapy and you ended up not going? My question is why? In my humble opinion, I believe everyone can benefit from therapy. In fact, I believe everybody should go at least once in their life.

My name is Iman Tohami and I'm a psychologist. This podcast tells you all about everyday cases with everyday people who have everyday problems and difficulties, and sometimes they carry around really deep wounds. These are their stories.

Hi everyone, how's everyone doing? So here I am. A couple of days back on social media I asked you if I should still publish new episodes and release new episodes because I was a bit hesitant to go back to regular content after everything that has been going on in the Middle Eastern region.

And also generally speaking, it's not everybody. I think everywhere in the world is having a hard time wrapping their heads around what's going on in the world. It's been a very challenging time. I think 2025 so far has been quite a year, and I do believe that since 2020, funnily enough, when this podcast um came into life, a lot of things have changed, and it's been a very turbulent five years, I guess.

But I asked you on Instagram if you would like me to keep on releasing the episodes, and there was an overwhelming response. I think it was 95% who said yes, and it was not a small sample. I got quite a few answers to that.

So here I am answering your questions and releasing more episodes, and I hope that this will be something that could brighten your day, make you feel a little better, and hopefully answer a few questions that you have. Anyway, as I promised, I think two weeks ago that this is going to be a continuation of the AI series.

So today I'm going to answer all the questions that you had after that first episode about AI and therapy, and I will try to be a little bit more in-depth about a few aspects about AI and therapy. So yeah, I do think we just jumped in.

Here we go.

Hi everyone! As I said, this is the second part of AI and therapy and the future of mental health support. And I am here with, you know, all the questions that I have gotten since the last episode. So today we are exploring a topic that has been making waves in the mental health computer community.

And I do think we should talk a little bit more about it because AI is not going anywhere. This is going to be a topic a lot of people have a lot of opinions about, and I do think that we must discuss this a little bit further.

So yeah, as I said, I'm going to answer the questions that you had after the last episode. I would suggest if you have even more questions, keep them coming. And I will try my best here and there to answer them whenever I have time, whenever I can sit in one more bonus episode about AI, but I do think that this is the last episode for now, unless something major happens, I will address it again.

I think if you tuned into our last episode on AI and therapy, you probably walked away with a lot of questions, but also curiosity and maybe a few concerns. And I am actually quite happy about that because this was exactly what I was trying to do with the last episode.

I wanted to be very clear about the privacy issues that we have with AI and how you can protect yourself basically when you are using AI or any tool that is trying to replace therapy, or it seems like it could be replacing therapy.

So today I'm answering some of the most common questions that I have gotten since the last episode, and I will try to address the risks, the challenges, the ethical dilemmas. AI introduces a lot of things, but it introduces also a lot of challenges into the mental mental health community.

Let's just jump in. I will open my apps and see what the most common questions were. So this is going to be the first question, I guess. It was one of the most asked questions ever, which is normal.

Here's the thing: if you're an expert or you know a lot of things about topics, you fail to understand that there are a few questions that are more in a basical. And I haven't answered that question. Looking back back, I'm thinking, oh my god, how could I have missed that?

It's a very important question. And the question is, very simply, can AI really understand human emotions? And I think the short answer to that is not yet. At least not in a very human way. Let me explain. AI can recognize emotional patterns, which means if you change the way you word things or talk to the app itself, can detect patterns through text and voice data, but it doesn't feel anything.

Feeling and intuition and therapy is very important. It can simulate empathy, but it's not real empathy. But it doesn't actually experience empathy. So for you to actually feel very understood, you need to have this chemical, physical, and also emotional connection with someone to actually experience what empathy is like.

An AI is still not able to do this. So while AI can support you with thoughtful responses and rationale, it's not a substitute for emotional deficit of a trained human therapist. And this is something that you need to keep in mind when you're addressing AI with a lot of your concerns, because you will reach a dead end by default.

The second question would be what is your biggest concern about privacy and data security? Look, for me, this is a very big one. I have been researching this for a very long time. A lot of people know that I did my dissertation about this.

Anytime you're sharing personal information online, not only with AI, especially as sensitive as your mental health, data privacy should be front and center. AI tools must follow strict regulations. There are a lot of international ethical codes of conduct, but not all apps are created equal.

And I really mean that. Always check with who owns the platform, how your data is stored, and whether or not it's going to be encrypted. I want to make perfectly clear that even though we know about terms and conditions when we are using an app, a lot of people fail to read it.

When it comes to AI, it's extremely important. You are basically signing a contract with something that is that is or should be the most precious that you have. Your thoughts. Even though thoughts can be very destructive and very hurtful, because sometimes the way we talk to ourselves is the most hurtful and painful.

You must understand that the biggest asset that you have is your information, your thoughts, and how you're conducting your life and your worldview. So if you're giving that up easily, you have to be very aware you're giving up a lot of your personal freedom.

Even in places where, let's call it oppression for the lack of a better word, obvious maybe, and you don't have a lot of personal freedoms. Please understand that your thoughts are always free. So when you give your freedom up in that way, you're giving up a lot of security and safety.

You don't want big corporates to to know your most intimate thoughts. Trust me, they will use it against you, whether it is um so they can get your money or or to manipulate you into doing or thinking something specifically.

Please be careful when it comes to that. So the second most common question was can AI misdiagnose someone? My answer to that is absolutely yes. It can, and that's a serious risk. AI uses patterns from data. Basically, it you you must you must understand that AI as it is today is just a better Google or search engine.

It's basically collecting every information out there and forming an opinion based on all the information that's out there on the internet. AI uses patterns from data, but it doesn't fully grasp the nuance, the context, or the cultural background that you're in.

So it doesn't really understand the human context when you are talking to it. Misinterpretation can lead to inaccurate assessments. Please understand an inaccurate assessment can alter your life, which is something that is so dangerous. The trajectory of your life can change based on a wrong diagnosis, trust me or not.

So I want to encourage you to see AI as a tool that supports you, but it cannot be a final decision maker. Question number four Are therapists going to be replaced at some point? No, not likely. So I personally am not afraid of that at all.

While AI might take on routine tasks like scheduling, initial screenings, I don't think that AI can replace the trust that you have in a therapy relationship. The way a therapist adapts to your mood, the way a therapist adapts to your life situation that can change day by day, or the deep empathy a human being can feel towards you when you are in therapy.

AI is here to assist, and I truly believe that, and I know that this is going to be an asset for everyone who's working in the mental health field, but I do not think that it's going to be replacing therapists, at least not anytime soon.

So the next question would be: what if I become too dependent on AI tools? That is a very valid concern because we are already too attached to our phones anyway. When support is always on demand, it can be tempting to avoid deeper healing.

You know, if you get validation for things you shouldn't get validation for, please understand you're creating an echo chamber when you're talking to AI. It's basically detecting your thought processes, understanding the way you think, the way you see the world, and it is responding from that lens.

And sometimes when you go in therapy, it is all about understanding that your worldview needs a little bit of adjustment, improvement, and also change. So when you're talking to AI, it's often an echo chamber just telling you what you really need to hear.

Not every validation is equal, not everything you think is right. So when you are talking to an AI tool, there is a serious risk that you're only doing it to get instant gratification, instant relief of your thoughts and feelings.

But sometimes, not sometimes, very, very often, therapy is uncomfortable. Therapy is demanding, and therapy is pushing you towards real change. And this is something that no AI tool I have interacted with has done that. Trust me, I have tried a lot just to get an idea how it works, and so far I haven't seen any tool that was as challenging as therapy could be.

So yeah, there is a real risk for dependency. AI should always be a bridge. The goal is growth, not dependency. I think those were the most important questions to address. Please understand. I think that AI and therapy is powerful, it's a very good step forward, but it comes with a lot of responsibilities when you are the user.

It's up to developers to build ethical tools, and I'm not sure they do. Trust me, I am not sure they do. Maybe I'm a little bit paranoid when it comes to this, but take it from someone who has done extensive research in that field, and I don't think that the ASICO standards are where they should be.

So please, as a user, stay informed, be careful, be absolutely aware that your information will be used one way or another. If something is for free, your information is what you're paying for. And again, your information, your privacy is your most important asset in an era where everything is digitalized and doesn't die.

As always, balance is key. Use AI as a support. Don't forget the value of human connection because trust me, us as human beings, even the most introverted of us, need human beings around us.

Please keep questions coming, not only about AI. I will always do some sort of Q&A um episode to answer your biggest concerns. And yeah, until next week, thank you so much.

Hey, thank you so much for tuning in. And hopefully you will tune in again next week. It will be another episode talking to or about clients of mine, and you can find us on social media on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

The handle is always @saidintherapy. Thank you so much.