Scaling up your practice as an individual practitioner comes with many challenges, including the risk of burnout. But imagine if you had an avatar that looked and sounded just like you and was programmed with every response you鈥檝e ever given to a client, as well as everything you learned in your training and CPD. Would your potential number of clients then become unlimited? If your gut response to this is that it will never happen you may be misinformed, according to Matthias Barker. In his 鈥楤ig issue鈥� article, 鈥楻eady or not鈥� AI is here鈥�, he argues that therapists ignore AI at their peril. He shares his extraordinary story of investing thousands of his own money creating an AI-enabled therapy bot programmed to operate as a virtual version of himself, only to pull the plug on the project at the last minute in what he calls his 鈥極ppenheimer鈥� moment. His concern wasn鈥檛 that the AI-enabled therapist wouldn鈥檛 be good enough but that it would be too good, and put him, and other practitioners, out of a job. Don鈥檛 miss that thought-provoking account courtesy of the fantastic US publication Psychotherapy Networker 鈥� thanks to editor Livia Kent for her generosity in sharing it with Therapy Today readers. 听
We also have a report from a team of UK researchers on therapists鈥� experiences of the transition to working remotely. Reading their findings, it struck me how much I have come to accept as the 鈥榥ew normal鈥�, such as clients taking their session from a different place depending on where they are that day, including (if necessary) walking outside. I鈥檓 sure I鈥檓 not the only practitioner who has had to deal with interruptions, less than perfect signals and restricted views of the client. Often we don鈥檛 know what obstacles we may be faced with before the session starts. I tell myself that my flexibility and adaptability in coping with this is in service of providing the client with a session they need. But the authors of our 鈥楤est practice鈥� piece, 鈥極nline therapy: what we know now鈥�, raise an important issue 鈥� have we as a profession given enough consideration to the consequences of accepting such wholesale changes to the way we work? I鈥檇 love to hear your views and experiences of this 鈥� email therapytoday@thinkpublishing.co.uk
Sally Brown Editor
