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Some of the world’s brightest minds, such as Elon Musk of Tesla and the physicist Stephen Hawking, consider artificial intelligence (AI), left unchecked, to be a serious threat to human civilization. Barring a doomsday scenario, should we be worried that AI will replace the jobs we consider only human beings capable of doing? Counselling is predominantly an interactional process between people, so there’s no need to worry, right?

Well, maybe and maybe not. We don’t know to what extent AI will be able to relate to humans in the future. In the mid 60’s at MIT, Joseph Weizenbaum created a computer program called ELIZA. Its responses were based on Rogerian principles of reflecting back to the user what they had said. The set up was a basic DOS screen where the user could type in what was bothering them, and the computer would respond in kind.

What was interesting about this experiment was that participants in the study began to attribute human emotions to the computer, even though Weizenbaum insisted the computer was simply following a programmed algorithm: it was only using the inputs from the user to generate responses. Users were not convinced though, and Weizenbaums’s secretary even asked him to leave the room so that she could have a private conversation with ELIZA!

That experiment took place over 50 years ago. Now we have enhanced virtual reality (VR), Google DeepMind AI that taught itself to walk and run, and IBM’s Watson which matches patients with potential online counsellors, even making treatment suggestions. Replacing humans altogether seems rather futuristic, but the rate of growth in technology is staggering, and we still don’t fully understand the long-term impact it will have on relationally dominated fields such as counselling.

Of course, no one wants to believe they could be replaced by an intelligent machine, but what if clients couldn’t tell the difference? The movie Ex Machina does a good job of imagining a world where humans lose sight of the fact that they are interacting with machines. The AI becomes so good at adapting to human emotions, that it learns how to manipulate us. Of course, this is just science fiction at the moment, but maybe not as far off as we might think…

So where does that leave us? Many therapists and clients already choose to adopt certain technologies to assist them. There are mental health apps for your phone, online CBT programs, and online counselling platforms – there are even robot pet therapy animals like the PARO seal. These technologies are a long way from replacing the work that counsellors do, but it’s worth thinking about how technology might affect counselling in the future.

In this quickly advancing technological landscape, the counsellor of the not-too-distant future may have to take a back seat to AI. Perhaps they will be the adjunct therapy when AI-delivered therapy isn’t effective with certain clients. Or maybe we have nothing to worry about. Let’s ask Siri.

“Profound ideas in an easy format.”
“To the point and informative!”
“It’s awesome and everyone should do it.”

This excerpt is from my podcast Alanism Ep.3 where I sat down with author, therapist and mindfulness coach and director of School of Moments Paul Christelis to discuss playfulness, creative process and therapy:

ALAN

One of the main reasons that I started this podcast is I really want to explore the therapeutic value of engaging in the creative process.

So music, for example, there’s just something so amazing, for me anyway, when I play the drums I just get this feeling of connection, and when I’m practicing some piece or some combination that’s really difficult and then finally getting it, it’s almost like putting a key in a lock or something… something shifts, and I go ‘Oh yeah, now I can do this.’ And I can keep building on that, and it’s almost like a little high that I get at the end of playing. And I think a reason for that is also just reconnecting to the body.

I know you practice mindfulness, and you work as a therapist. And so, I know that the mind-body connection is important to you as well, and I think there’s something about engaging in the creative process that maybe brings those two things together… because you have to practice a technique, but once you have the technique then you can move into a more creative space.

PAUL

I think sometimes with the technique, when you’re learning the technique it can be quite cerebral. So a lot of your attention is on just the mechanics of it. But after a while, once it starts to… you feel it in your bones, it’s like being unconsciously competent at something. And then you’re not accessing or coming to what you’re doing from a cerebral space anymore, it’s just like a more embodied kind of thing.

ALAN

So early on in the creative process, I guess, there’s no other way around the cerebral process, like you said, you have to consciously practice a movement, if it’s dance or music or something, but once that becomes second nature, then as you say, it becomes more embodied, maybe implicit memory is a good description as well, where you don’t have to consciously think about it, it almost just happens organically.

PAUL

I don’t know if you noticed this, but even with a conversation like this, when we start there’s that sense of ‘Well we just started, this is a new space.’ And I just noticed that I was accessing something in my head, and just as we’ve been speaking it through, and the space becomes more knowing, or more knowable, there’s more of a sense of ‘OK, I’m more aware of what I’m feeling now.’ So, I’m sensing I’m speaking more from my body than I was from my head when we started.

ALAN

As soon as I hit record, I think that’s what you mean, because we were already in conversation prior to hitting the record button. And then as soon as I said ‘OK, now we’re recording’, all of a sudden it’s like ‘Oh’, like something shifts, right. ‘Oh, now we’ve started something new. OK, what are we doing? What’s happening?’…performance anxiety, right!

PAUL

And actually it’s a lot like that in a therapy session where I find with clients, I don’t know if you find this, but you know you have those moments of acclimatizing at the start, and then there can be that kind of sussing each other out, and a lot of the work is going on in the head, and then you just sink into it, and then the space becomes a lot more porous and full of possibility, and you don’t really know where you’re going.

ALAN

And that’s OK… and in my experience anyway, that time of sussing each other out can be shorter or longer depending on the person as well, and the relationship. Sometimes, it can take multiple sessions (or multiple months!) to drop down into a more sensory experience or embodied experience.

PAUL

I think that’s right, and I think trust is a big part of that. You’re working sometimes with people where there’s difficulty around trusting each other, or trusting the process, then it’s very difficult, I think, to get to a place where true play can happen. It’s like you’re still negotiating the space together, and you’re still getting a sense of how trustworthy and safe the other person is, but sometimes that’s necessary so that you can create the conditions in which then the true playing can happen.

ALAN

It’s so interesting, because you do have to set up some parameters don’t you. I mean even if you’re painting you’ve got the frame, at least, to contain the painting. And so I see therapy and the counselling process that way as well. You set up the parameters: ok this the time, this is the space, then the psychological negotiation, and then hopefully at some point that just becomes part of the process, but not something you have to think about and over-analyze, and eventually you can then drop into that playful space. Although, I don’t know how many people would think of counselling as playing, but I think there has to be some kind of improvisation, and there’s a creative quality to counselling as well isn’t there.

PAUL

Well, really I wish more people would actually equate what we do with playfulness, I think that’s really missing in the work that we do. We were talking just before we started about how it [therapy] can feel like a serious enterprise, you know ’It’s gonna be traumatic, and in fact real work is only possible if you’re working on something serious’ and then you’re furrowing your brow and this kind of thing. And I’ve been aware, and it’s almost been a silent intention of mine, that I’ve got to laugh at least once in a session, regardless of what’s actually happening and what the client is bringing. And I think that’s very, very underestimated, is that quality of heartfulness, of playfulness, because I think you can even bring difficulty and you can bring seriousness, and you can really get in touch with it if you’re coming from a place of playfulness too. If there’s no play, then I think there’s a kind of… it just becomes a bit arid, and I think it doesn’t allow the client’s synapsis to… they’re dry instead of juicy. You want to introduce some kind of moisture into the session. I’m not sure if that’s the best word to describe it!

ALAN

Not the dreaded ‘m’ word! But it makes sense, otherwise it’s quite dry and brittle maybe. And it’s not a comfortable place to be. And not to say that doing difficult work is necessarily comfortable, but at least it can be rich and rewarding, and you can have a laugh even when you’re feeling down. I think that humour is underestimated, underused, underrated… obviously it has to be used correctly. But to just take humour and playfulness out of the equation, I think, it’s not allowing the person to have a full experience of what it means to be a human being either.

PAUL

Absolutely, and I think that’s also how you really connect, that’s been my experience anyway. That’s been my experience as a therapist is connection often happens in those moments of levity, and it’s not the same as being superficial, because if you can genuinely share those moments, there’s a real deepening of the relationship. I think it also helps a client access those parts of themselves more easily as well.

ALAN

It’s not humour in the sense of just laughing something off or avoiding, but as you say, that genuine connection to what can sometimes be quite absurd as well. Sometimes situations are just absurd!

PAUL

Life is absurd!

ALAN

Sometimes it’s so powerful to just throw your hands in the air and say ’It’s out of my control’ or whatever, but to just allow ourselves that psychological space I think, rather than getting locked down into the seriousness of it. Because there is a lot of serious stuff happening in people’s lives, and in the world in general, it would be very easy to just get completely bogged down and almost immobilized as well. And I found that for myself, you know, I make sure to inject some kind of humour, or some levity into my day. Whether that’s watching stand-up comedy or whatever the case might be, because that’s part of life too isn’t it. And it’s not just a mindless distraction, I think it speaks to who we are as human beings. Yes, we have serious things to deal with, but there’s also joy and playfulness even in the most awful situations as well, right.

PAUL

I agree, and it makes me think of artists like David Lynch. He’s an artist I really, really admire. He’s really fascinating because if you look at a lot of his work, people might describe it as being quite morose, and really strange and weird, and dark, but if you listen to him speaking about his process, you’ll see that there’s something incredibly light. He practices transcendental meditation, and he talks about how these ideas come from this spacious, creative, playful space, and it’s really fascinating because even when you’re watching something that he’s filmed, or you’re looking at a painting or a sculpture, you can see and feel the darkness and the weirdness, but you can also sense where it’s coming from which is not a dark place, it’s actually a place of abundance.

“Profound ideas in an easy format.”
“To the point and informative!”
“It’s awesome and everyone should do it.”

There is a revival in research associated with the medical use of psychedelic substances (together with psychotherapy) in the treatment of common mental health problems such as anxiety and depression, and issues like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and addictions. The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) in the US has been at the forefront of this pioneering work for many years, as well as organizations in the UK such as the Beckley Foundation.

Because psychedelics like MDMA, LSD, and psilocybin mushrooms have been classified as dangerous drugs with no medical benefit, it has been extremely hard for researchers to get approval for examining the potential benefits of these substances. So why have these substances been classified as dangerous if there are potential health benefits? A lot of the initial resistance to studying them seems to be political.

In the early 70s, then US president Richard Nixon made it his goal to eliminate political dissenters to the Vietnam War, but because this was such a large group of people from all walks of life and cultural backgrounds, the easiest way to target them was to go after the substances they were using such as LSD and cannabis. The war on drugs was born.

At the same time, the general public still knew very little about psychedelics, and neuroscience was in its infancy. What people did know was usually through sensationalized media stories, government anti-drug campaigns, and movie depictions of social drop-outs (e.g. Easy Rider). What they didn’t know was that serious research was being conducted on the potential benefits of these substances, and that they were being used for medical purposes.

Once these substances hit the street though, it became impossible to control the purity and dosages—never mind medical use. Also, the set (the user’s mindset at the time, e.g. therapeutic intent) and setting (e.g. a psychotherapist’s office vs. a noisy party) for taking the substances was ignored. Without considering these important factors, the potential medical benefits are significantly reduced.

In terms of negative effects, the current research shows that psychedelics carry significantly lower risks of negative health consequences compared to legal substances such as alcohol or tobacco—both of which can be lethal. Also, psychedelics appear to have almost no addictive qualities, which cannot be said for many other legal drugs such as tobacco, or prescribed opioids. Nevertheless, psychedelics need to be treated with care.

So the question remains, can psychedelics be used to treat common mental health problems? If we give researchers such as MAPS and the Beckley Foundation the resources to explore these substances, we just might find out. The research so far seems to be promising. We should use all available resources to help those suffering from mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, PTSD and addictions—rather than letting bias and past hysteria distract us from the potential benefits of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.

“Profound ideas in an easy format.”
“To the point and informative!”
“It’s awesome and everyone should do it.”