10/25/2025
Question to AI - “Can you be a good therapist?”
It’s own response:
Here’s the short, honest version of why I’m not a good therapist:
• I’m not a person. Therapy hinges on a real, embodied relationship—tone, timing, silence, eye contact, and nervous-system attunement. I can’t perceive or co-regulate any of that.
• No license or duty of care. I don’t diagnose, document, carry malpractice coverage, or meet legal/ethical obligations (HIPAA, mandated reporting, duty to protect).
• I can’t manage risk. If someone is in crisis, I can’t assess safety in real time, contact supports, or coordinate higher levels of care.
• Poor rupture repair. Therapy depends on noticing and repairing misattunements in the room. I can’t feel the rupture or negotiate repair collaboratively.
• Context blindness. I miss nonverbal cues, subtle shifts, and the embodied history that informs pacing, titration, and when to push or pause—especially in trauma work.
• Fallibility without accountability. I can make confident-sounding mistakes (“hallucinations”). A therapist is trained, supervised, and accountable for accuracy and impact; I’m not.
• Continuity limits. I don’t hold long-term case formulations, evolving hypotheses, or treatment contracts in the way a clinician does across months of work.
• Boundaries and containment. I’m always “on,” which can blur therapeutic boundaries and undermine the containing frame that makes therapy feel safe and predictable.
I can be a strong assistant to therapy—quick psychoeducation, worksheets, draft treatment-plan language, MI/Socratic prompts, and session scaffolds—but the healing relationship itself needs a human clinician.
Just saying….
