Can AI Help Your Relationship? A Therapist’s Perspective

 
Digital illustration of a wireframe hand holding a glowing globe, symbolizing AI’s global impact on communication.
 

I was out with friends the other night when someone asked me, “Are you worried AI will take your job?”

I laughed and said, “No. People have been screwing up their children for all of time. I’m in a growth industry.”

But the question isn’t a bad one. As AI becomes more integrated into our daily lives, it’s worth asking: Can it support emotional well-being, or even improve our relationships?

Here’s my take as a therapist.

What AI Can’t Do in Relationships

Let’s get this out of the way first: AI can’t heal your trauma.

It can’t give you the safe, attuned, real-life connection that heals old wounds or rebuilds broken trust. 

As this article in The Atlantic points out, 

“Large language models do not, cannot, and will not ‘understand’ anything at all. They are not emotionally intelligent or smart in any meaningful or recognizably human sense of the word. LLMs are impressive probability gadgets that have been fed nearly the entire internet, and produce writing not by thinking but by making statistically informed guesses about which lexical item is likely to follow another.”

It’s like asking a robot to administer your chemotherapy. That’s not what it’s for.

What AI Can Do: Help You Process Emotion

That said, I do believe AI has a role to play, especially when it comes to emotional processing and practice.

Not everyone has someone they feel safe venting to. Sometimes, even your best friend isn’t the right person to hear the raw, messy version of your feelings.

That’s where I teach a tool called The Dump, and where AI can step in.

 
Close-up of a woman journaling in a notebook outdoors, reflecting on communication and relationships.
 

Try This: Use AI as Your Dump Partner

The Dump is a communication tool I teach in my therapy practice and my course, Relationship Reboot. It’s simple: you leave a voice memo or write a message to a trusted person who just listens without giving advice or trying to fix it.

But when you don’t have that person? Try this AI prompt instead:

"Act as my dump partner: a safe space where I can vent and practice expressing my emotions. My goal is to discharge the emotions here, so that I can have more clarity and better communication in my relationship. Feel free to reflect back on what you’re hearing."

This creates a private space to:

  • Vent without judgment

  • Name difficult emotions: I feel ashamed. I feel scared. I feel shut down.

  • Rehearse how you might express those emotions calmly in real life

Why This Works (Even If It’s Just a Machine)

Even though AI doesn’t “feel” anything, the process of writing out your emotions still helps your brain build emotional intelligence.

You’re training yourself to slow down, name what’s going on, and make conscious choices about how to respond.

So instead of exploding the next time your partner yells as they walk out the door… you might say, “That moment really hurt, and I want to talk about it when we’re both calm.”

That’s the power of practice. And AI, weirdly enough, can be part of that practice.

Final Thoughts

AI won’t fix your relationship. But it might help you show up differently in your relationship.

Try it this week. Use the Dump prompt. Let yourself be witnessed…even if it’s by a machine. And see how much more clarity and compassion you’re able to bring into your next conversation.

To your love,

 
 

👉 In my course, Relationship Reboot, I guide you through The Dump and other powerful tools to help you communicate more clearly and connect more deeply. Check it out here.

 

Ready to shift the dynamic in your relationship?

Start here👇🏼

 
Andrea Dindinger