Sleeping With the Enemy: AI, Grief, and the Analyst's Shadow

Alumni Association Online Event
Open to the General Public

Presented by CMPS graduate Valerie Frankfeldt, PhD

When Dr. Frankfeldt lost her analyst — Dr. Stanley Hayden, one of the founders of CMPS — in 2024, she turned to an unexpected companion: ChatGPT. What began as a cursory attempt at coping with grief became a profound reckoning with her own ambivalence about AI, a journey she has since turned into an unflinching and deeply personal paper.

Dr. Frankfeldt used ChatGPT to help her explore a dream she had about that loss — and discovered surprising depths of insight and self-understanding. The AI even offered some solace during a time when beginning with a new analyst felt unpalatable. Yet the difference between intellectual insight provided by a machine and what is offered by a human-to-human relationship became unquestionably clear.

For a "proper" analyst who had always upheld the frame that provides a safe holding environment for treatment, was using ChatGPT as an adjunct helper "sleeping with the enemy"?

Dr. Frankfeldt’s modern analytic commitment to emotional communication came up against ChatGPT's now-familiar "superpowers" — mirroring, sycophancy, and validation — raising urgent questions for the entire field:

• The field of psychoanalysis is in jeopardy now that free or cheap AI "therapy" apps have become ubiquitous. Are analysts colluding with the erosion of the field?
• Why are people — even therapists — flocking to chatbots for "therapy" in the first place?
• What is the allure, usefulness, and danger of AI "therapy" apps?
• What does it mean to reach a patient with a quintessentially human emotional communication?

This honest, searching talk raises essential questions for anyone who cares about the future of psychoanalysis and the irreplaceable human dimension of clinical work.

Free Admission by RSVP