Can AI Replace Somatic Therapy?
Exploring the Role of Artificial Intelligence in an Embodied Healing Profession
As artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated, many in the mental health field are asking: How will AI change the field of psychotherapy? More provocatively, can AI replace somatic therapy?
At our clinic, we regularly meet people who have spent years in traditional talk therapy. They’ve developed deep insight into their struggles — they understand why they feel anxious, depressed, or stuck — and yet, their symptoms persist. When they arrive at our doors, they’re seeking something different: an approach that goes beyond cognitive insight and taps into something deeper. This is where somatic therapy begins — not just in the mind, but in the body.
Meanwhile, a growing number of people are turning to AI chatbots for support. One blog writer recently declared that after years of working with multiple therapists, they now prefer ChatGPT. Why? Because, they said, it had read more books and offered more reliable insights than any human therapist they’d worked with.
This raises a vital question: Will therapists become obsolete?
The Human Impulse to Heal — and Be Healed
As a therapist, I often say that my job is to work myself out of a job. I want the people I work with to trust themselves again — to reconnect with their inner wisdom, resilience, and sense of agency. If AI can help reduce suffering and improve mental health outcomes, I welcome it.
But therapy is more than symptom relief. And healing is more than insight.
The human impulse to heal — and to support one another in that healing — is part of our evolutionary wiring. We are social beings. We heal in relationships, and we are transformed when we are met by someone who has lived through their own experience of transformation.
AI may one day become a powerful ally in this journey. But it cannot replace the power of presence.
What AI Can’t Do: Teach Embodiment
AI can synthesize thousands of research articles, offer sound psychoeducation, and even simulate empathy. But it cannot teach embodiment.
Embodiment is not a concept. It’s a felt sense — a lived experience of being in your body. We learn to be embodied through co-regulation, through attuned presence, through feeling safe in relationship with another human being.
This is especially true in trauma healing. Trauma is stored not just in memories, but in the nervous system. Many people struggling with trauma come from early environments where their needs were not met — where they were not seen, held, or valued. Somatic therapy offers something radically different: a corrective relational experience that allows the body to begin to trust again.
AI cannot hold you in loving regard as you recall a painful memory. It cannot track the subtle shifts in your breathing, the tremble in your voice, the tears you haven’t yet cried. Healing happens when a therapist says, “I see you. I’m with you.” And their presence — calm, grounded, real — helps your body believe it.
Can AI Support the Therapeutic Process?
Absolutely — if we use it wisely.
The future of therapy does not have to be either/or. AI can play a supportive role in enhancing psychotherapy. It can help clients feel more informed and empowered. It can assist therapists with clinical tools, summaries, psychoeducation, and even creative interventions. It can reduce barriers to access and help people take the first step toward healing.
But AI must remain in service of human connection—not a replacement for it.
The mission of therapy is not just to reduce symptoms. It’s to help people live more fully embodied lives, in alignment with their values. It’s to help them reclaim their agency, build secure relationships, and move through the world with a deeper sense of self.
AI can point people toward this path. But only humans can walk it with them.
