Is ChatGPT replacing Therapists?
The growing use of ChatGPT for emotional support has generated understandable debate. Interestingly, a recent UAE university study found that 69 per cent of students have turned to AI chatbots for emotional support, with heavier use linked to higher levels of anxiety and depression. The finding is striking, though perhaps not for the reasons many assume. More than telling us something about artificial intelligence, it reveals something uncomfortable about the way many people experience relationships and psychological health today.
People have always healed through relationships, just as they have always been wounded by them. This has always been one of psychotherapy's central premises. We learn who we are through the people around us, make sense of painful experiences by talking them through with someone else, and recover from emotional wounds inside relationships that feel safe enough to hold them. There is something deeply paradoxical, then, about one of the defining psychological habits of our time. Many of us are increasingly turning to a machine to help us navigate problems that began with other human beings. We used to screenshot a message from a partner and ask a friend, "What do you think they meant by this?" We borrowed perspectives, compared experiences and tried to understand ourselves through one another. Increasingly, many of those conversations now happen with LLMs.
We all understand part of ChatGPT's appeal. It is available at any hour. It never seems impatient, distracted or emotionally overwhelmed. It never sighs, changes the subject or makes us feel we have spoken for too long. For perhaps the first time in many people's lives, undivided attention is available on demand.
Many people hesitate to talk to others about their lives because they worry about becoming too much: too emotional, too repetitive, too needy or too dramatic. Every conversation with another person carries the possibility of judgement, misunderstanding or exhaustion. AI removes those relational calculations and constraints. It asks for nothing in return, which is part of what makes it feel psychologically safe.
As a psychologist, I understand why many people compare AI to therapy. Both involve thinking out loud and trying to make sense of difficult experiences. If you associate therapy with a place where you simply get advice or thoughtful responses, the comparison makes sense. Therapy, however, unfolds through an ongoing relationship. A therapist remembers your story across months or years, notices patterns that remain outside your awareness, stays emotionally present when conversations become uncomfortable and gradually comes to understand the way you move through the world. They notice your silences, the subjects you avoid, the moments your eyes drift towards the window while speaking about someone you insist no longer matters. Those observations become part of the work. Good therapy also involves misunderstanding and repair from ruptures, moments where assumptions are corrected, difficult conversations are navigated together and trust deepens through the process itself. Those experiences are part of the treatment. They cannot be separated from it. Over time, people usually leave therapy with a greater capacity to tolerate uncertainty, hold complexity and take ownership of their choices.
For many people, however, therapy is simply not available when they need it. In the UAE, access to psychological care continues to improve, yet significant barriers remain. Therapy can be expensive, insurance coverage is sometimes inconsistent, busy work schedules make regular appointments difficult, and some people still struggle with stigma or finding a therapist who speaks their language or understands their cultural background. Someone who feels overwhelmed late at night may have nowhere else to turn. AI fills a very real gap, offering immediate space to reflect when other forms of support feel out of reach. Understanding why people turn to AI is an important part of this conversation.
That space can be genuinely useful. People organise their thoughts before speaking to a partner, prepare difficult conversations, explore emotional reactions or draft messages they later rewrite in their own words. These are thoughtful ways of using AI. The challenge appears gradually, when reflection becomes a substitute for action. Another prompt replaces the phone call. Another analysis delays the conversation. Another opinion postpones the decision. The search for clarity progressively becomes the search for certainty, and responsibility for difficult choices becomes easier to place outside ourselves.
There is another consequence worth considering. If millions of people increasingly rely on the same language models to navigate relationships, conflict and difficult decisions, what happens to psychological individuality? AI systems are trained predominantly within particular linguistic, cultural and historical contexts. They can broaden our perspective while also encouraging similar ways of interpreting the world. Our individuality is shaped in part by the choices we make and the meaning we give to our experiences. If those processes become increasingly outsourced to the same technology, it is worth asking what happens to the uniqueness and diversity of our psychological lives.
This reflects a broader psychological shift. More and more, people are asking AI questions that have no objectively correct answer: Was I wrong? Should I leave this relationship? Does my partner love me? Am I anxious, toxic or simply overreacting? These questions are attempts to find certainty where certainty may not exist. Living with that uncertainty, reflecting on it and ultimately taking responsibility for our own choices are central parts of psychological growth. If every difficult feeling immediately sends us searching for an external answer, we may gradually lose confidence in our own ability to think, reflect and decide.
Also ironic is the fact that the same technologies that now promise emotional support have steadily reduced many of the everyday opportunities we once had to practise being with other people. We spend less time in face-to-face conversations, tolerate less awkward silence, resolve fewer conflicts in person and progressively communicate through carefully edited messages. When relationships become difficult, reaching for another screen has become our instinctive way of seeking relief.
One final paradox deserves attention. Many people feel safer sharing deeply personal thoughts with AI than with another human being. Yet therapy remains one of the few places protected by professional ethics, legal confidentiality and clear standards of practice. AI conversations may feel private, although many users have little understanding of how those conversations are stored, processed or used over time. The emotional experience of privacy and the reality of privacy are not necessarily the same thing.
The rise of LLMs as an emotional companion does not suggest that people have stopped needing one another. It suggests the opposite. People continue to search for attention, patience, emotional safety and somewhere they can think out loud without fear of judgement or becoming too much. Technology has responded to that need with remarkable efficiency. The more difficult question is why so many people no longer expect to find those same conditions in the people around them.
