Did It Make a Sound If Nobody Heard It Fall?

Yet another article about AI. Every industry is taking a step back at the moment to consider how artificial intelligence might shape the future of work. Will it make certain jobs redundant? Completely transform what customers need? We don’t know exactly how the landscape will shift over the next decade, and for many, that uncertainty feels uncomfortable.

As a therapist, I’ve had my own concerns about how the “need” for my role might change. As a millennial therapist, I sometimes find myself scrolling TikTok — and I was alarmed to see posts like “I asked ChatGPT to be my therapist and this is what it said,”or “I asked ChatGPT why I have abandonment issues, and its reply blew my mind.”

Shit, I thought. This ChatGPT isn’t half wrong. Of course it isn’t — it has access to the wealth of counselling research at its fingertips and the insights it generates are often grounded in evidence-based frameworks. Some of what it said mirrored thoughts I’ve had with clients myself.

For a moment, I had an existential wobble. If my role can be so easily replicated, how can I justify charging over fifty pounds an hour for insights someone could access in five minutes?

Then I reminded myself: I am human. I have over a decade of training, experience, and intuition — but beyond that, I have the one thing AI cannot replicate: the human experience itself.

Humans are complex, contradictory, and beautifully nuanced. I can have two clients in seemingly identical situations, yet their experiences of it — their emotions, narratives, and meaning-making — are completely different. Nuance is a wonderful thing, and it’s something AI can simulate, but not inhabit.

That led me to ask myself: why do I believe an AI therapist can’t truly work? My answer came down to one word — witnessing.

I could sit alone at my kitchen table and ask ChatGPT, “Why am I finding life so difficult right now?” It might ask thoughtful questions about work stress or family struggles. It might even offer compassionate statements or painful truths that resonate deeply. Maybe I’d even cry.

But then what? I close the tab, and no one in the world knows what I’ve just experienced. There is no space held for it. It remains unseen.

In therapy, one of the most transformative processes is the act of being witnessed in our pain — not immediately fixed, dismissed, or avoided, but seen and accepted by another human being. That moment of shared awareness is what allows our emotions to become real, to take shape in the space between therapist and client. And even after the session ends, there is a sense that the therapist continues to hold that space open — that it still exists, waiting for your return.

This process is profoundly healing because it’s so rare in everyday life. So rarely are we seen wholly, without judgment, and given the time and space for that experience to settle.

AI can generate responses — but it cannot witness. And that’s the difference.

Of course, AI has its place. It can make mental health support more accessible, offering a starting point for people who might otherwise never reach out. For those in crisis at 2 a.m., or in places where therapy is unaffordable or unavailable, AI tools can offer guidance, psychoeducation, and a sense of being accompanied, even briefly. In that sense, AI can extend the reach of care — but it cannot replace the relational essence of therapy itself.

And so we return to the old philosophical question: if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

In therapy, the human therapist is the one who hears — who allows a person’s experience to materialise, to be felt, validated, and held. That witnessing is what makes healing possible.

AI might have the words, but only humans can truly listen.