“I don’t need a counsellor, I’ve got ChatGPT” – what’s wrong with this thinking?

AI tools like ChatGPT can be helpful for exploring ideas, gaining insights and accessing general information, but there are significant limitations to them. 

Counsellors are trained professionals tailoring their approaches to an individual’s specific needs, emotions, and circumstances. They can assess subtle verbal and non-verbal cues; build therapeutic relationships; and, adapt techniques over time. ChatGPT can’t replace this human expertise or provide the depth of understanding that comes from working directly with a human therapist. 

Human connection is a core element of effective counselling. A professional counsellor can offer empathy, validation, and a sense of being truly seen and heard.  These are things a machine, no matter how advanced, can’t replicate.

Counsellors are bound by ethical codes, confidentiality, and professional standards to protect your wellbeing. They can recognise when someone is at risk and provide immediate, appropriate interventions. ChatGPT and other AI tools lack this capacity and can’t guarantee your safety or give urgent help during a crisis.

It also needs to be said that counselling work often involves complex, nuanced issues that need deep exploration of emotions, past experiences, and behaviours. An AI tool can provide insights and details of coping strategies, but what it can’t do is guide you through long-term situations towards growth, help you tackle unresolved trauma, or help you address deeply ingrained patterns and habits you want to change. 

AI tools are not infallible, either. They can misunderstand your concerns as outlined by you; give incomplete or inaccurate information; and, fail to address the root of your problems. A counsellor is trained to dig deeper and to make sure you’re exploring the right issues for you. 

Using any of these tools like ChatGPT for supplemental support or casual conversation can be helpful, without a doubt, particularly in addressing the immediacy of thoughts on the go and helping with feelings of loneliness and isolation, but they shouldn’t replace professional counselling when it comes to addressing your mental health concerns, emotional wellbeing, and personal growth.

Reliance on AI for what would be pseudo-therapeutic support really isn’t a good idea and could prove dangerously misleading. No matter how well they mimic empathy, it’s important to recognise these systems have no emotions at all. Building a two-way therapeutic alliance to help you is, therefore, impossible for them. To achieve that, you need a counsellor with feelings, experience, earned qualifications, and a very human desire to help people borne not from mathematical algorithms, but conviction and belief in the value of the work they do. 

Get in touch with Xander for a free 30-minute initial assessment and to work out a fee that’s right for your circumstances should you decide to proceed further. Xander has spaces currently available to welcome new clients.

Xander, trading as xph therapy, offers integrative counselling, which means working with multiple therapy types, including CBT, psychotherapeutic and person-centred to develop a therapeutic pathway just for you, whatever outcome you’re hoping to achieve.