Does your therapist use AI?

Maybe. A lot of therapists have turned to AI to take notes and do their paperwork. Do you know if yours does?

You should know, because therapists are required to get consent. If you’re not sure, ask your therapist.

And ask for what you want. It’s up to you.

“Notes that write themselves.” —Mentalyc

What do you want?

As a therapist, I’ve decided to stick with doing my own notes and paperwork.

“Get back 5 to 10 hours each week” —Blueprint

No doubt I could save time if I used AI. It takes me hours a week to do what it can do in microseconds. With every decision, though, there are pros and cons. What are the cons?

“The subtleties of human feelings and experiences are still difficult for AI to fully comprehend.” —SimplePractice

What an understatement. Human feelings and experiences are totally incomprehensible to AI. That’s the con.

I don’t want to turn that part of my job over to AI. I track with your feelings and experiences and hold conversations about your challenges and values. I put that in my notes. Does anyone expect AI to understand these conversations?

Why I choose to do my own notes. AI records sessions, analyzes the words, and turns them into notes. It’s being trained to process language at higher levels, such as sentiment analysis. It has a long way to go. That’s painfully obvious when you try to talk to a chatbot. It misses nuances, idioms, sarcasm, and references to relationships, culture, and stuff from other times and places. Human interactions consist of more than just words, too. We use lots of nonverbal cues to communicate, or if we don’t, we might get called robotic.

So, while AI can capture words in a counseling session, it fails to understand what’s going on. My notes captures what happens in a session. I don’t want to turn that part of my job over to a bot.

Why I choose to do my own paperwork. It’s the unexciting, solo part of a therapist’s job. AI can summarize dialogue, analyze patterns, write treatment plans, and even diagnose you. Writing my own summaries and plans requires me to think about you between sessions. Sometimes I have to think really hard and read and consult with colleagues.

If AI wrote everything for me, I would reduce the time & energy spent thinking about you. I would be less engaged.

I choose to do my own paperwork.

Questions:

If your therapist wanted to use AI, and asked you for consent, how would you respond?

You could ask:

• Is it a problem if I say no?

• How would AI enhance the work we do here?

I’m asking you:

• What do you want?