One for the professionals among us.
I love it when something pops into my consciousness that really makes me stop and reflect. For quite a while now, through the process of posting these blogs I have been working hard to communicate exactly what we do here at Dialogues and why. Sometimes successfully and sometimes not! I just read a description of how I feel about therapy and the reason I founded Dialogues and why we do what we do. Amazing! Reading this has touched me so greatly that I wanted to share it will all of you, my lovely connections who follow us on social media, who are considering us for their therapy journey and those of you who are already our clients. This passage was written far better than I could ever hope to write by Brian Spielman so I am including it verbatim here, with a link to their website, it’s called The Academy of Therapy Wisdom Academy Of Therapy Wisdom and for the professionals amongst us looking to challenge and grow further, take their personal and professional development deeper, you may be interested in some of their teachings too.
Here goes:
“Dear Jo,
For the past two years, we’ve been witnessing something unsettling in the mental health world.
It feels like our field is splitting into two very different futures at once.
Future #1: Therapy becomes more scalable, tech-enabled, and increasingly corporate.
Chatbots are offering emotional support at 3am. AI tools are writing notes. Private equity firms keep buying up therapy practices and treatment centres. Large telehealth companies are optimizing for efficiency, speed, and shareholder returns.
Not all of this is bad. I spent time this past week recording a podcast with Paul Hoard, who teaches at Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. He developed an app so students can practice their therapy skills before stepping into real sessions, without the agreeable bias of most AI apps. These tools solve real problems.
Therapy remains inaccessible for millions. Waitlists are long and costs are out of reach for many. Clinicians are burned out from documentation, insurance battles, and large caseloads. If AI can ease some of that load and help more people get care, that’s fair.
I suspect more therapists will start using AI the way accountants use software, or doctors use better diagnostic tools. It can remove friction and free up time. One reason we create the Wisepractice.io platform.
And there is another future emerging at the exact same time.
Future #2: People are starving for something more human.
Brené Brown has talked about how isolating modern life has become.
Despite all the tools we have for connection and gathering (iPhone, WhatsApp, Signal, Zoom, Uber, no one is stranded at home anymore), we are more hungry than ever for connection and meaning. So much of life has become synthetic.
Even our bodies are full of microplastics, and an NPR report yesterday described how ultra-processed foods and environmental chemicals are disrupting our gut microbiome in ways that may be fuelling the rise in colon cancer, especially in younger people.
And the algorithms of social media keep us addicted for hours. At least that’s been my experience.
Over the past few months, I’ve had the privilege of sitting with extraordinary teachers, with the purpose of bringing this wisdom to you.
I spent four days filming with Hedy Schleifer and Paul Browde for their upcoming program on elderhood. I left feeling deeply moved by their warmth, humility, and hard-earned wisdom. Their presence itself felt medicinal.
I spent time with Grandmother Flordemayo, one of the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, and was reminded that eldership is not something that magically appears on your 65th birthday like Medicare. It is cultivated through a lifetime of devotion, service, humility, and practice. Plus a lot of trial and error.
And we’ve been working with teachers like Staci Haines, who keep reminding us that healing is not merely individual. We are also living inside larger systems that shape our nervous systems, our relationships, and our sense of what’s possible.
These experiences leave me wondering, what exactly can be automated without losing human connection?
Information? Absolutely. Scheduling? Of course. Documentation? Hopefully.
But can AI transmit wisdom earned through suffering?
Can it help us feel what it means to sit beside someone who is about to take their last breath?
Can it embody the steady nervous system of a therapist who has spent decades learning how to stay present with pain without turning away?
Can it replace the mysterious healing that happens when another regulated human nervous system sits across from us and quietly says, I’m here with you?
I don’t think so.
In fact, I suspect the opposite may happen.
The more automated therapy becomes, the more valuable deeply human clinicians will become.
Therapists who know how to create genuine connection.
Therapists who understand trauma not just as a diagnosis but as something held in our bodies, families, institutions, and communities.
Therapists committed to both study and embodiment.
Therapists who understand that healing often requires meaning, spirituality, community, grief work, and practices that cannot be reduced to an app.
If you ever doubt your edge, remember what Hedy reminded us: 93% of communication is non-verbal. How will AI ever compete with that?
This may be one of the greatest opportunities for conscious clinicians.
Not to compete with technology, but to become more fully human, to deepen your craft, to protect the soul of this profession, and to offer what machines cannot offer.
Presence. Discernment. Wisdom. Embodiment. Love. (Did I miss anything here?)
Those qualities may become increasingly rare, and at the same time increasingly needed.
Perhaps that is the strange irony of 2026.
The more therapy becomes automated, the more people will hunger for genuine humans.
With warmth,
Brian Spielmann”
Thank you Brian for sharing your thoughts on the future of therapy. I guess as a supervisor I notice how much platforms like Better Help are attempting to dominate therapy practice in the UK. Their algorithms compete for space and knock the usual directories Counselling Directory Counselling Directory – Find a Counsellor Near You and Psychology Today Psychology Today United Kingdom: Health, Help, Happiness + Find a Therapist off the top spot on Google making it harder for our own websites to reach clients directly. Promising therapists who qualified and experienced but only really enticing those who are new to therapy practice or struggling to get clients in any other way. Sorry, not sorry for being so direct. Rewarding them the more clients they see, encouraging burn out and offer little in the way of ethical practice and support when the shit hits the fan.
I think you can see how I feel, judgy maybe, but when a company offers one thing and delivers the opposite and they are working with vulnerable people, I take issue with that and challenge the ethics of the practice and I won’t stay silent about that.
This blog isn’t to hate on Betterhelp or tech. It’s to tell you about our difference, and what we offer. Because we are passionate about how important that is. Plus we don’t have a waiting list currently.
We all need to feel seen, heard and as though we are important enough for someone to make the effort to try and understand our world and how we feel about ourselves in it. That’s what we do at Dialogues. No catch, just kindness. At a cost you can afford. And we have therapists, really exceptional therapists, who want to work with you.
Whether it’s professional to professional or professional to client. We have something for you. Try it. Self-refer by emailing me and take the first step. talktodialogues@gmail.com
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