A Note From The CAI Co-Chairs
by Todd Essig, PhD and Amy Levy, PsyD
We begin this Note by acknowledging an emerging but often-avoided reality: the accelerating transformations driven by AI across the economy, education, health care, and even intimate relationships and self-experience are profoundly anxiety-provoking. Not paying attention can offer some initial emotional comfort. AI awareness does not come easily. So, we want to express our deep appreciation to those who have stayed engaged with the CAI last year despite the challenges. And what a year it was. From an expanded mission and identity, to the tragic loss of a valued colleague, to several ongoing and new initiatives, 2025 was a rich, demanding, and deeply emotional year.
We moved from being a council within APsA’s Department of Psychoanalytic Education to becoming the President’s Commission on AI. This wasn’t just an organizational relocation; the shift reflects the value APsA places in our work, particularly as expressed by our new mandate to work across all areas of APsA where AI intersects with psychoanalysis. It also reflects the CAI’s need for the President’s direct support in developing our ambitious new initiatives.
The CAI Documentary Project is one such new initiative. Intended to be a well-told story for the general public, it will use psychoanalysis to explore what is being lost when AI performance replaces human processes, including in psychotherapy. Thanks to the enthusiastic support of APsA leadership, we enlisted the experienced documentary team of Charles de Lauzirika and Jeremy Emerman who found our project as fascinating—and troubling—as we do. We launched a successful first round of fundraising as an APsA Restricted Fund and will begin shooting interviews at the 2026 APsA National Meeting in San Francisco.
We also launched the CAI Institute/Center Working Group project, a monthly meeting of institute and center leaders to discuss the challenges and opportunities AI is presenting to psychoanalytic education and community life. We also piloted and will soon be launching the CAI Peer Consultation Group project, led by Cara Maniaci and Marc Levine. It aims to provide a safe space for all psychoanalytic colleagues to reflect together on the changes AI is bringing to our work and profession.
2025 saw several exciting workshop series events including, in the winter, CAI Workshop Series #3 “Will Psychoanalysis, AI, and Philosophy Collide, Or Enrich Each Other?,” a Conversation with philosopher and AI scholar, Luca Possati, Ph.D. hosted by Amy Levy; in the spring, CAI Workshop Series #4, “Epistemic Breaks, Artificial Intelligence, and the End of the Social Bond” with psychoanalyst Fernando Castrillón, Psy.D. and, in the summer, “Humans, Minds, and Brains: A Trialogue at the Edge of AI Possibility” with Fred Gioia and the two of us, which was a reprise and extension of a panel presented at the William Alanson White Institute “Irreverence” conference. We explored the intersections of psychoanalysis and AI by considering what we revere, what deserves—or even benefits from—irreverence, and what should be protected from it. And we added a fourth, albeit non-human voice, prompting an AI to be a discussant for the three speakers. The complete proceedings of that workshop were collected into a Special Issue of The CAI Report, published in October 2025.
Leora Trub, Darby Lasky and the rest of the Digital Media and Psychology Lab at Pace University completed a survey of psychoanalytic attitudes toward AI. Results are currently being analyzed. We continued to send out “CAI Dispatches” with Cynthia Field as a new “dispatcher.” These informative email nuggets about breaking AI developments and their effects will be converted to the Substack-based “CAI Currents.” We want an image that better captures our sharing content of psychoanalytic relevance within the ocean of AI news.
Tragically, we experienced the unexpected loss our very dear and deeply valued CAI member and CAI Report contributor, Robert Hsiung, M.D. (best known as “Dr. Bob”) following a summer biking accident. This tremendously upsetting loss had the effect of strengthening and solidifying our commitment to the CAI community of care during a time when AI presents serious challenges to human connection.
Now, we look to 2026 with cautious hope. As AI continues rewriting much of human experience, the CAI runs alongside, dedicated to studying AI’s rapid development and to protecting psychoanalytic and human values through our many initiatives both within the psychoanalytic community and with the general public. Primary among them is what you are reading: The CAI Report. Under the editorial leadership of Alexander Stein, we’ve been offering timely pieces with psychoanalytic perspectives on AI’s evolving uses, risks, and benefits to individuals and society. We are immensely proud to host this online publication, the first, and still only, to express a specifically psychoanalytic voice in the global conversation about the human and social dimensions of AI.
