Can AI Hold You While You Cry?

on therapy, convenience, and the illusion of intimacy

we want to feel better.

Faster.

Cheaper.

On our schedule.

Without the small talk.

Without the risk of being misunderstood.

Enter: AI therapy.

No waitlists. No awkward silence. No one blinking too long when you say the hard thing.

You can be unfiltered at 2:03 am … rambling, spiraling, confessing, seeking.

It listens. It affirms. It responds.

And in a world that rarely does any of those things— well this can feel like magic.

I get it. Really I do.

As a professional psychologist, I’ve seen the desperation in people’s eyes when they ask how long the wait is for a real human.

I’ve watched the system stretch and snap. I have sat with brilliant, self- aware, emotionally fluent people who can’t afford to be seen.

I have also sat with people who are not satisfied by just being listened to without any real solutions or new ways to pave.

So I understand the seduction of the simulation.

But let’s not mistake this for what it is not.

AI can talk you through a spiral. It cannot hold your unraveling.

What the Science Tells Us (and What It Can’t)

Yes, studies show AI tools like Wombat, Wysa, and Tess reduce depression and anxiety symptoms in short- term bursts.

For those who feel too ashamed or too broken or too busy for therapy— AI offers relief.

But therapy— actual therapy — was never meant to be efficient.

It was meant to be transformative. And transformation is never frictionless.

• Co-regulation, is the syncing of one nervous system with another, and it can only happen between living, breathing bodies.

• Mirror neurons which are the basis of empathy, do not fire for bots.

• Oxytocin release which is critical to trust and bonding, requires actual eye contact (not a blue light screen)

AI can simulate support.

But it cannot simulate truly being known.

What We’re Losing

We are being trained to confuse responsiveness with resonance.

To mistake speed for safety.

To believe that because something feels like connection it somehow is.

But, here is what real therapy offers that a machine never will: A sigh at the right moment. A long pause when you say, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me”. A memory triggered by your pain that shifts the entire conversation.

A heartbeat. A gut instinct. A presence.

AI doesn’t ask why you looked down after saying that. It doesn’t notice the tears you’re trying to intellectualize away. It doesn’t hold your gaze when you say something embarrassing. It doesn’t stay silent with you— on purpose.

What We Should Be Asking

When we start handing our most sacred emotional landscapes over to machines, we should ask: What part of this is making me feel better? And what part of this is making me feel nothing at all?

Because the truth is: You can’t automate alchemy. And healing is a kind of alchemy.

It’s unpredictable, it’s messy… deeply inconvenient. But also the thing that saves us.

Let’s Reframe, Gently

This isn’t about tech shame. I legit take AI with me to dinner these days, snap a picture of the menu and ask it to help me decide or modify what I can eat on this autoimmune flare that is currently wreaking havoc within me at the moment.

I also consult with it before making itineraries for any travel and definitely ask it to clarify my longwinded thoughts into more concise and clear text for work related emails… but, the other day when I was about to ask it to help me deal with my anxiety about the weight of the world I sort of stopped myself, I was so tempted… I wanted there to be a concise, perfect, data driven answer but I knew I was looking for connection. For a brief moment that scared me, why wasn’t I turning to the people and within myself like I had always done before…. Because I had created a habit.

Use the app. Use the chat. Use the bridge.

But know it’s a bridge.

AI can be the first voice that helps you crawl out of bed. But if you want to come back to life, you’ll need someone who’s nervous system can meet yours in the dark. Because there are parts of you that can only be loved by someone who has fallen apart and put themselves back together too.

Tools, (if you want them):

1. The Human Audit:

   Ask: When was the last time I was truly witnessed without filters or formatting?

2. Emotional GPS:

   Are you turning to AI because it feels safe? Or because human connection feels impossible or just too hard? There’s no wrong answer. But that distinction matters.

3. Reaching Out (for real)

   Text someone this: “Hey, I’m a little messy right now. Do you have space to hold something with me?”

More Thoughts:

AI might help you stay afloat. But if you want to be seen in your sacred ache, in your silence, in your searching… you’ll need a person. Not a perfect one. Just a real one.

Healing doesn't happen when you’re answered. It happens when you’re met. And we aren’t meant to do that alone. We weren’t meant to be this quiet in our pain. So go ahead and use the tech, but don’t forget the point was never just to feel better. The point was to come home to yourself in the presence of someone else.

The Harvard Study of Adult Development, which has followed people for over 80 years, found one thing to be true across every life stage, socioeconomic group, and personality type:

The strongest predictor of health, happiness, and longevity is not success. Not money. Not even IQ. It’s the quality of your close relationships.

We are living in an age where that kind of closeness is being automated. Simulated. Softened into something smoother— but emptier.

And here is the fear… That if we turn to AI for connection long enough, our capacity for connection might begin to atrophy. Our brain, which is plastic, adapts to what we feed it. And if we stop practicing presence with real people, we starve it and we stop remembering how.

There is no study yet on what happens to the human soul when we stop being witnessed by others souls. But I don’t want to wait for that research to know it matters.

So right now, the most radical thing thing you cant do is resist the impulse to go at it alone— efficiently. Because healing doesn’t happen in isolation, it happens in relation.

That’s what our nervous systems were built for. That’s what real connection feels like…

That’s hope, actually.

xx Dr. Deepika