Written By: Jenny Maguire, LCSW-C
Two years ago, I authored a blog about whether AI might become the new therapist. Today, in 2026, I think a more important question is evolving:
What happens when we use AI to help us think through our emotional experiences, and what are we missing when we outsource that work?
In 2024, the question that was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore was, could AI replace my therapist? At the time, AI was beginning to push its way into mental health in ways that felt both exciting and unsettling. People were using AI to challenge negative thoughts, talk through relationship problems, identify family patterns, and provide companionship or conversation during a walk or a long drive. The appeal was and still is obvious.
AI continues to be increasingly more accessible: available at any hour, doesn’t compete for appointment preferences, no waitlist, and doesn’t seem bothered with repetitive concerns that make no or slow progress. The benefits are still clear, but I have become increasingly interested in (a) different question(s):
What if the thing that makes therapy effective isn't simply “getting the right answer?”
What if the process we eliminate when we use AI is the whole point?
Think about how often we already get this advice (and our rolled-eye reaction):
“Don't worry about it.”
“Just think about it differently.”
“You shouldn't care what they think.”
“Look at the positive side.”
“Everything happens for a reason.”
“Just let it go.”
We have been giving each other these little nuggets of “wisdom” forever… ask me how I know. How many times have I been sitting in a therapy session, complaining that no matter how often someone tells us, no matter how much we trust them, or how true what they say might be, it doesn’t change how we feel in response to what we think.
Knowing what we “should” think doesn't necessarily change what we actually think. Knowing and believing are not the same. You can know that your partner isn't angry with you and still feel anxious when they don't respond to a text. You can know that your body doesn't determine your worth and still struggle when you look in the mirror. You can know that one tragic experience doesn't mean something terrible will happen again and still feel your nervous system react as though the past is repeating itself. You can know something intellectually and feel different emotionally.
One of the things I talk about frequently with my clients is the question:
What are you making this mean?
An event happens, we interpret it, then we connect that interpretation to everything we've learned before. Our past experiences help inform how we understand our present experiences. This starts, even before our earliest memories. Like how we cry when we are hungry as infants (and sometimes adults) and we get fed.
Sometimes those associations are helpful because they were developed for very good reasons at an earlier point in our lives, but they can also be outdated or distorted and no longer serve us in the same way. A therapist isn't there to tell you, “here's what this situation really means.” We don’t have this great big book of interpretations or meaning, but we can help you slow the process down with attunement and participation.
Your brain learns through experience, not just information.
In my field, we use the word neuroplasticity to describe the brain's ability to change in response to experience, learning, and repeated patterns of activity. Learning involves repeated experience. When we repeatedly practice responding differently, we are giving the brain opportunities to learn something different and that is the reason the effort involved in therapy matters.
You might hear us say, “you’ll get out of therapy what you put into it.” When a therapist asks you to identify a cognitive distortion, challenge it, consider alternative explanations, connect it to an earlier experience, notice the emotional response, and then practice responding differently, you're not just getting the “right” answer. You're participating in the change which happened in the context of relationship.
Intellectualizing can be a very sneaky defense, and it’s not the same as processing.
This becomes even more important when we talk about trauma and emotionally charged experiences. Sometimes people can explain their history and report it to us like a eagerly awaiting a gold star. They know exactly what happened, who was responsible, what they should have felt, why something continues to trigger them, and still their body and brain aren’t on the same page. Therapy is a lot about helping a person experience the past and the present in a different way with the goal of increasing their ability to tolerate it.
The Problem With Outsourcing The Work:
Here’s where I raise my B.S. flag… when we go AI to have our thoughts interpreted for us.
“Tell me what this means.”
“Was I wrong?”
“Am I being unreasonable?”
“Tell me why I'm feeling this way.”
“What should I think instead?”
“Tell me what my partner really meant.”
I’m not arguing with the convenience of an immediate answer, but it’s robbing us of the skills we need to make the change lasting. If I tell you what your experience means, I've given you an interpretation. If you work through an experience and discover what you've made it mean, challenge that meaning, consider alternatives, tolerate the emotional discomfort of uncertainty, and arrive at a new understanding, you've established a skill. Those are not the same thing.
The therapeutic relationship matters.
Sometimes we need help discovering that the story we've been telling ourselves isn't the only possible story. Studies show consistent positive connection between therapeutic alliance and therapy outcomes. That doesn't mean a therapist possesses some magical quality that a computer can never replicate. It means therapy is an interpersonal process. A therapist isn't simply listening to the words you say. Therapy involves collaboration, observation, emotional responses, context, history, and the relationship developing between two people.
Sometimes, the most important thing that happens in a therapy session isn't what’s said. It's noticing the hesitation before you answer, the change in your voice, the moment you become defensive, that what you're saying and what you're feeling are opposites, and often the realization that the way you're responding to your therapist is also the way you respond to someone outside of therapy, and sometimes we can work with that pattern in real time, within a relationship that is specifically designed to help you work around your blind spots.
Therapy (with a person) is irreplaceable because it can create a space where you can experience something different and learn from the experience.
That’s what we mean when we talk with clients about resilience.
We want to help you develop the ability to recognize your own patterns, question them, understand where they came from, and decide whether they still deserve to run the show. We think it's one worth doing the work for.