AI therapy is a surveillance machine in a police state
theverge.com
theverge.com
It has been neutered and reformed into some kind of counseling, but not completely, and it can become feral and discriminating/horrible/disgusting at any time.
Just search the history of it.
So, we should go against any kind of therapy and mind probing. Not just AI.
It is instructive to Catholics like me, especially during the pandemic, when priests insisted that Confessions must be heard in-person, not over the phone, not over Zoom. There were priests hearing "Drive-Thru" confessions from people in cars during the lockdowns!
But it's interesting to see many sacraments get re-invented, because fundamentally, humans need this kind of connection and this kind of unburdening, and if they can't do it with a priest, they'll pay good money to a professional, and if they can't pay good money to a professional, they'll just pour out their souls into a keyboard interface...
1/ there's a huge difference between what happens during a confession, and what happens during a psychotherapy session, as well about what you are to discuss, as well as how you are to understand, and work on your issues. Different worldviews, different outcomes sought, different remediations.
You may explore and find common grounds between the notions of sin and human limitations/wounds/imperfection and psychological suffering, and between absolution/reconciliation and behavioural change, emotional processing, but those are still very specific, different things, that have their own names for good reasons. That's why you may do both: confession + psychotherapy.
Freud was certainly influenced by, because very critical of religion he understood more as an illusion. Saying he copied/replaced it seems a bit far fetched.
2/ People and humanity existed long before the Church instituted these sacraments around the XIIth century. Sharing burdens, seeking guidance, finding closure, penance, identifying, naming and processing emotions is as old as... humanity. Greek philosophical schools and secret cults. Pre-antiquity cults. Eastern meditation traditions.
The Church did not invent it, psychotherapy did not invent it. Both shaped it in specific ways.
Honestly, it doesn't take a genius or religion to figure out that human connection and good counseling are good things.
However, I despise the analytical part of it. It sounds like made up stuff.
Anyway, "pouring the soul" into material stuff is probably much older than organized religion. Writing, painting, etc. To think people do it because they miss counseling is, in my opinion, in the realm of "wild unbiased guess". We do it since the very first cave paintings, for many different reasons way broader than a single explanation can hold.