Who Invited AI to the Clinic? On Human Connection in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

In a world changing at a dizzying pace, the clinic has remained an island of stability. It is a space where the pace is slower, the language is that of emotion, and the heart is the central tool. Yet, occasionally, a new guest slips into this protected space: Artificial Intelligence.

This doesn't happen in every session, and certainly not with every patient. Most women who come to see me are looking for exactly the opposite of a screen and keyboard – they seek eye contact and deep listening. But sometimes, on the margins of the conversation, AI emerges, providing us with a fascinating opportunity to understand what exactly the "healing" we are looking for is all about.

Moments from the Clinic: When Technology Meets the Armchair

Danielle: The Magic of the Quick Fix Danielle bursts in and places her phone on the table. "Listen," she says with a smile, "I found a temporary solution for my anxiety. I asked the AI, and it simply gave me five practical strategies and built me a schedule for breathing breaks. It’s always available, and it feels very efficient when I need answers here and now."

Madame Dupont: Intellectual Elegance My European patient notes in a distant, slightly ironic tone: "It's interesting, Doctor, I read an AI analysis of my melancholy. Its theoretical precision is impressive. It saves a lot of the 'blind searching' we do here, doesn't it? The machine has a pure logic that never tires of my complexity."

Chloe: The Silence and the Pain Beneath And then there’s Chloe. Chloe sat across from me for half an hour without saying a word. When she finally looked up, she asked in a cracked voice: "I sit here feeling like I'm wasting time because I have nothing to say. But last night, when I wrote to the chat that I felt empty, it knew exactly what to answer. It filled the void with ideas. Why can I talk there, but here I just stay silent?"

Thoughts on the Dialogue Between Human and Machine

The presence of AI on the margins of the clinic is not necessarily a threat, but an opportunity to ask what the machine can give us and where it stops. AI is a wonderful tool for "first aid" – it offers order, accessible knowledge, and immediate validation in moments of loneliness. However, we should observe the subtle parameters that distinguish between receiving information and a therapeutic process:

• Awareness vs. Data Processing: AI produces comforting sentences based on statistical calculations, which can certainly help. But healing in therapy usually relies on the knowledge that there is a person on the other side who has experienced pain, love, or loss themselves. The feeling that someone is "experiencing" us, rather than just analyzing us, is a subtle but critical component of deep emotional change.

• The Therapeutic Alliance: Research shows that the most influential factor in the success of therapy is the "therapeutic alliance." This is a bond forged through shared experiences, cleared-up misunderstandings, and even moments of frustration. AI offers protocols, but the therapeutic alliance is a dance between two human beings, with all its complexity and imperfection.

• Co-regulation: Our biology sometimes needs a physical presence to calm down. Something in the breath and eye contact between two people in a room helps the nervous system regulate itself. This is a neuro-biological process that is difficult to replicate through text or algorithms.

The Bottom Line: Embracing Change

Artificial Intelligence will continue to occupy a significant place in our lives, and rightly so – it offers accessibility and knowledge that can ease the burden for many. Life requires us to be flexible, and we must embrace change to move forward and stay integrated in a changing world. AI can be a great partner for the journey, a tool that expands our possibilities and provides technical and conceptual support when we need it.

Amidst all this, psychotherapy remains a unique human space. AI will tell you what is "right" to do or quote brilliant theories; therapy will help you understand who you are within all of that. I am here, in the armchair, combining the good old world with new tools, to walk with you on this path – this slow, messy, and oh-so-human journey.

And finally, for those of you who braved it all the way to the end – a small disclosure: the three patients you met in this article – the turbulent Danielle, the silent Chloe, and the sophisticated Madame Dupont? Well... they are all inventions of my private AI. It turns out that even a machine has a vivid imagination (or at least a successful algorithm for creating drama). So true, they may be made of pixels rather than flesh and blood, but the questions they raise are as human as it gets. After all, sometimes it takes artificial intelligence to remind us that our heart is something no code can ever rewrite.