When Dr. Valerie Frankfeldt lost her analyst 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”?