Artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly prominent within mental healthcare, with significant investment from technology organisations in virtual therapy, emotional support platforms, and conversational agents. AI has demonstrated its ability to mimic attunement, attachment and empathy, and a growing number of people are adopting these tools, with some reporting reductions in anxiety, depressive symptoms, and suicidal ideation.
However, the current evidence base for AI in therapy remains largely confined to cognitive and behavioural interventions, leaving psychodynamic and psychoanalytic approaches largely unexamined.
This doctoral research project therefore explores whether AI, in its current form, can engage at the level of emotional depth and relational complexity characteristic of psychotherapeutic work.
This qualitative study involves semi-structured interviews with psychodynamic psychotherapists, psychoanalytic psychotherapists, and psychoanalysts who also have experience of using AI for personal psychological use.
This participant group is uniquely positioned to have informed opinions on human psychotherapeutic encounters and AI-based interactions, drawing on both professional clinical expertise and lived experience.
Interviews explore participants鈥� experiences and perceptions of AI in relation to psychological use.
Participation involves a one-hour Zoom video interview, which will be recorded, transcribed, and analysed using relational thematic analysis (human), to examine the subjectivity and nuanced understanding of how experienced clinicians conceptualise AI in relation to core psychotherapeutic principles.
Participation is voluntary. All data will be fully anonymised, with identifying details removed prior to analysis.
Research data will be stored securely and used solely for the purposes of this doctoral study, and deleted upon completion.
The project has received ethics approval through the University of Exeter.
For more information or details on how to take part, please see here.