If your therapist is staring off into space and mixing up your boyfriend’s name with your cat, be kind. Odds are, they’re still processing the news that artificial intelligence is replacing them. Or at least, that’s how this news makes them feel.

Stabbed in the back, punched in the gut, few words describe being outperformed by an algorithm. But this is just what artificial intelligence is starting to do.

Last week, ChatGPT passed the Turing Test, a measure of whether humans can detect if they’re talking to a sentient creature or merely a machine. Turns out, it comes down to pretty much a simple coin toss.

Research by PLOS Mental Health found that participants were only slightly better than chance at detecting whether they were conversing with an actual therapist or ChatGPT, correctly identifying ChatGPT therapists 51 percent of the time and human therapists 56 percent of the time.

No matter how many hearts you’ve stitched back up, your clients won’t notice or care if you’re in the room or not. It’s pretty depressing for those in the Hope business. But there’s more, and maybe you should sit down for this one.

Subjects found ChatGPT to be a better therapist when it came to the strength of their relationship alliance, their emotional sensitivity, and even their cultural competency with subjects. ChatGPT took greater time and care than its human counterparts, offering more encouraging and elaborated responses, brimming with nouns and verbs. It helped participants tell a richer, fuller story of themselves.

This research echoes an Australian study that found ChatGPT offered more balanced, thorough, and emotionally clued-in advice on social dilemmas compared to human advice columnists. So no matter how much it hurts, this isn’t an anomaly, and it’s just the beginning.

But, even though my job seems on the line, I’m surprisingly calm. It’s like the joke of a psychiatrist replying to the news of his patient’s breakdown: “I don’t know whether to say I’m sorry or congratulations!”

Despite the dystopian terrors of being replaced by a bot, therapists can lean into the breakthroughs found in this seeming breakdown. Artificial intelligence forces us not only to step up our game, it reminds us where to find the best of ourselves.

Unfortunately, I’ve heard too many clients lament that they typically find one of two kinds of therapists out there: those who are fantastic at listening but don’t really help them figure out what to do and those who have really great techniques and know exactly what to do but hardly listen. Ironically, ChatGPT isn’t the only listener in town who knows how to integrate these essential functions: the best human therapists do too, and they are true artists.

Research demonstrates that these so-called “supershrinks,” therapists who consistently leave their comparable peers in the dust, show results and outcomes that are often ten times better than those of their less effective peers. They are quick to speak straight to the head and the heart, precisely targeting and disconfirming their client’s problematic beliefs and providing a relationship where a new emotional experience is possible.

These supershrinks are rightfully perceived as the most responsive to their clients, engaging in a depth of creative interplay that not only witnessed past grievances but also actively rewrote their stories. Best of all, because they read the changes of the psyche like a jazz musician, each session feels like a brand new tune. Clients come away from these sessions feeling enlivened, focused, and hopeful; they reconnect to the creative energy of being in a healing, collaborative relationship.

One supershrink offered a highly active interpretive approach with a patient who felt guilt at surpassing her siblings and a more passive and listening stance with a patient raised by highly intrusive parents who needed time and space to figure things out for himself. This self-same therapist, like a good accompanist playing more softly, could flexibly provide more tender and loving self-compassion and support to a highly self-critical and punitive client so that the beauty of their own music could be heard yet again.

ChatGPT does nothing more than emulate us at our best. It is not an oedipal usurper, an impersonal parrot, or a walking liability. It is built in our image, and is in our hands to remind us of what is possible when you allow yourself to be both expert and beginner, soloist and accompanist.

Above all, artificial intelligence is a reminder that we therapists are servants of the unique human being sitting before us, hoping beyond all hope we’ll offer promising answers while entertaining their most tender and sacred questions. If ChatGPT reminds us of this art, it truly is a breakthrough for all of us.