In Defense of Human Connection

AI has ushered us into a new era. If the internet was once considered the information superhighway, artificial intelligence is the Millennium Falcon—blasting us into hyperspace at faster-than-light speeds. It’s thrilling, powerful, and incredibly useful. But according to some experts, it’s also a little terrifying—and a potential threat to humanity as we know it. Yikes.

The most immediate concerns? How AI challenges our work, professions, training, and education. Its efficiency highlights just how differently machines process information compared to human beings.

Not a day goes by without a client mentioning how they've used ChatGPT to assess their mental health outside of session. They’ve turned to it for a wide range of reasons: plugging in symptoms for self-diagnosis, pasting in confusing text messages from partners, or trying to solve—or "cure"—their insecure attachment styles. Some have even forwarded me their chatbot conversations. I welcome it with caution.

What’s particularly interesting is that AI is no longer just something clients are using independently. Increasingly, healthcare systems and insurance companies are integrating AI into their mental health offerings. Some insurers, including Aetna, have begun incorporating AI-powered mental health support tools and digital behavioral health resources for members. As these tools become more sophisticated and cost-effective, many clinicians wonder how they will reshape the future of mental health care.

For the record, I am not anti-AI.

Quite the opposite.

I use it. I find it fascinating. It regularly astonishes me with its speed, breadth of knowledge, and ability to organize information. For psychoeducation, reflection, brainstorming, journaling prompts, and helping people put language to their experiences, it can be an incredible tool.

And yet, despite AI’s lightning-fast responses and 24/7 availability, clients still come to therapy. It appears I have job security—for now.

What human therapy offers is attunement: the client's felt sense of being seen, understood, and emotionally held by another person. It offers nervous system co-regulation. Some say being a therapist is like renting out your regulated nervous system by the hour. I feel this.

The energetic one-on-one human experience—empathetic understanding, sincere eye contact, shared laughter, compassion, presence, and the subtle nonverbal dance that occurs between two people—is not something an AI bot can truly offer.

At least not yet.

And perhaps never in the way that matters most.

Because healing is not simply the exchange of information. It is the experience of connection.

So, dear friend, use AI to your advantage—but do so with care. Let it educate you. Let it help you organize your thoughts. Let it support your curiosity. But remember that true healing rarely occurs in isolation with a screen.

It happens in community. In meaningful relationships. In moments of vulnerability shared with another living, breathing human being. In the presence of someone who can sit with your pain, celebrate your growth, and offer something no algorithm can fully replicate: genuine human connection.

Stay human,

Mandy