The AI Pharmakon in Psychoanalytic Care: Ambivalence, Augmentation, and Psychoanalytic Futures

Speaker: Todd Essig, PhD

The AI revolution is here—and by “here,” I mean right here in our consulting rooms. Interactive self-help tools are now marketed as AI psychotherapy, and for many, they’ve become a viable treatment option. Augmentation technologies for clinicians are readily available, reshaping aspects of clinical practice in real time. Meanwhile, patients are forming relationships with AI entities that range from instrumentally useful, to emotionally resonant and companionable, to psychologically destabilizing—even destructive. This Grand Rounds will explore the clinical state of play amid these rapidly accelerating developments, with a focus on how psychoanalytic sensibilities can help us think, feel, and act in response.