It is increasingly common for people to turn to AI tools when they are struggling. They are available at any hour, they do not judge, and typing a difficult thought into a chat window can feel easier than saying it out loud to another person.
Perhaps it is 1am, you cannot sleep, and you find yourself typing out a spiralling worry about your relationship. Or you are dreading a conversation with a family member and want to rehearse what to say. AI is right there, and it answers.
If that sounds familiar, you are not alone, and it is not something to feel awkward about. Plenty of people who come to therapy have used AI this way, and it is a perfectly reasonable thing to mention to a therapist.
If you have used AI this way, or have wondered whether it is a reasonable substitute for therapy, this article is for you.
Why people turn to AI
The appeal is understandable. AI is available 24/7, it responds instantly, and it can feel anonymous in a way that talking to a person does not. For many, that lowers the barrier to putting difficult feelings into words for the first time.
This can be a genuinely useful starting point. Naming what you are going through, even to a chatbot, is not nothing. Someone who has never said the words “I think I might be depressed” out loud might find it easier to type them into a chat window first. That can be a real first step.
There is also a difference worth noticing between using AI as a tool and using it as a substitute. Asking it to help you word a difficult email, or find language for a feeling you cannot quite name, is a fairly low-stakes use of it. Turning to it night after night, instead of talking to anyone in your life, is different, not because AI is bad, but because it can quietly become a way of avoiding connection rather than building it.
But it is worth being clear-eyed about what AI can and cannot offer from there.
What AI cannot replicate
Therapy works, in large part, because of the relationship between two people. Trust, empathy, and the sense of being truly understood by another human being are central to how change happens in therapy. These are not things AI can genuinely offer, however convincing the conversation might feel in the moment.
AI can mirror language back to you. It cannot sit with you in your experience, notice what you are not saying, or bring the kind of attuned, human presence that a therapeutic relationship is built on. It will not notice that your voice changes when you mention your father, or gently reflect that back to you weeks later when the pattern shows up again.
The risks worth knowing about
There are a few things worth being aware of if you are using AI to process difficult feelings:
- It can get things wrong. AI can offer guidance that is inaccurate, biased, or unhelpful, and it can lead people towards self-diagnosis that is not accurate. Describe a few symptoms of anxiety and it might confidently suggest a diagnosis that a trained clinician would want to explore far more carefully first.
- It can encourage over-disclosure. Because it is always available and feels anonymous, it is easy to share more, more quickly, than you might with a person, sometimes before you are ready for that. A late-night conversation can go further, faster, than the same conversation would with a therapist who is pacing the work with you.
- Confidentiality is not guaranteed. Conversations with AI tools are not protected in the way conversations with a qualified therapist are. Where that information goes, and how it is used, is often unclear.
None of this means AI is off-limits. It means it is worth using with awareness, and alongside the right kind of human support rather than instead of it.
One thing worth being direct about: AI is not a safe place to turn to if you are in crisis or having thoughts of harming yourself. If that is where you are right now, please contact your GP, call 111, or reach the Samaritans on 116 123, any time, day or night.
Our approach at Inner Space
We do not think it is helpful to tell clients what they should or should not use. What we do think is important is an open conversation about it.
If you use AI tools alongside therapy, we would rather know. It helps us understand the fuller picture of what you are working through, and it means we can talk together about what is useful, what might be worth being cautious about, and where the two might sit alongside each other. This is about informed choice, not rules.
In practice, this is not a lecture, and it is not about measuring how much of the “real work” you are doing elsewhere. It might be as simple as your therapist asking what you have found helpful about it, or gently noticing together if it has started to stand in for a conversation you actually want to have with a person.
For example, if you have been using AI to help untangle a difficult decision between sessions, that is useful context. We can pick it up together, rather than treating it as something separate from the work.
Taking the first step
If you have been using AI to process something difficult, or have been putting off talking to a person about it, that is a good place to start a conversation with one of our therapists.
You can read more about our approach on our therapy services page, or find out more about our team on our meet the team page.
Inner Space Counselling has been helping adults, young people, and families in Tunbridge Wells and beyond since 2014. Our therapists are highly qualified specialists and members of professional bodies including UKCP, BACP, and NCPS.
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