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Current Thoughts From Dean Muran:
In the Dawn of AI
This past summer, I was asked by two journalists to reflect on psychotherapy in the dawn of AI. They both posed two deceptively simple questions: What is a therapist? And what is a therapeutic relationship? Their questions pushed me to distill various ideas and findings into something I could explain beyond the walls of our profession. Here are my answers in brief.
The therapist is far more than a provider of techniques. They are “complex agents for change,” entering into a dynamic process with their patients—mutually influencing and being influenced. The therapist’s humanity, including their many idiosyncrasies, is central to the work.
Therapists have been imagined as mentors, witnesses, adversaries, transitional objects, holding environments, emotional containers, interpreters, co-authors and even “professional friends.” These roles shift moment to moment, depending on the needs of the patient and the unfolding of the relationship.
The therapeutic relationship is not only the structure for treatment—it is also a critical process of change. It creates a space where suffering can be named, explored and potentially transformed. This relationship becomes a secure base and a laboratory for experimentation: a place to express feelings, confront fears, challenge expectations and develop new capacities for self-definition and interpersonal connection—thus, a greater sense of efficacy and resilience.
Importantly, the relationship is neither perfect nor limitless. It is bounded by time, structure and the differences of both participants. Each presenting unique intersections of identities and experiences, which invariably result in misunderstandings. These are not obstacles to be avoided—they are opportunities for growth. In negotiating these misunderstandings, therapists and patients can discover new ways of being with themselves and relating with others.
To my understanding, this is where human therapists differ from AI. While AI can offer connection, consistency and immediacy, thus potentially helpful relational experience, it is hard to imagine how it can replicate the deeply human experience of negotiating difference and discord with another—the existential struggle toward mutual recognition. The real, unscripted moments where individuals collide and can meet are what make therapy transformative.
In the end, the work is not about perfect attunement, but about how we meet, how we miss and then how we find one another. It is in this very messy process, this dance of rupture and repair, that we develop essential skills for being and relating—where change can take root and new possibilities for living can emerge.
I was truly struck by my conversations around these questions and will be curious to hear answers from others. Please feel free to email me your thoughts. |
