How This Article Was Written: This article was produced through a series of discussions with Claude (Anthropic). The process was similar to a conversation with an informed colleague—one who is also skilled at writing in clear English, conducting research, and organizing ideas in a coherent way.
Imagine this: after a difficult session, you want to consult your clinical formulation with an AI. You paste a fragment of your session notes into a chat window. Within seconds, you receive a thoughtful, well-structured response that helps you see the material from a new angle. But here is the question that should come first: what just happened to your patient’s data?
Artificial intelligence is already influencing psychotherapeutic practice in ways that would have seemed improbable just a few years ago. Some clinicians use it to draft case formulations. Others experiment with it as a thinking partner before supervision. Amy Levy, in a presentation for the APSA Council on AI, described presenting a twenty-year-old nightmare to ChatGPT – a dream about carrots marching in single line into a slaughterhouse. The AI’s response was striking: it asked analytically guided questions that encouraged linking the dream to waking life, invited personal associations, and worked to contain the raw experience of the dream. As Levy observed, the AI offered “transformation out of the discomfort and disorganization of human experiencing” within seconds (APSA Council on AI, 2024b). Whether or not we find this reassuring, it demonstrates a capacity that is difficult to dismiss.
This article offers a practical orientation for TFP clinicians who want to understand what current AI tools can do across clinical work, research, writing, and publication – and what using them means for the privacy of our patients’ data. It is not a product guide. Specific platforms and their features change too quickly for any printed recommendation to remain valid for long. Instead, the aim is to provide a framework that helps clinicians evaluate any AI tool, present or future, on their own terms.
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Michal Novák
Michal Novák is a psychologist and psychoanalytic psychotherapist. He works in private practice with adults, providing individual, couples, and family psychotherapy. His training also includes group psychoanalytic psychotherapy, and he is a TFP certified psychotherapist. He participates in the training of candidates in psychoanalytic psychotherapy and transference-oriented psychotherapy.