A new philosophical paper argues AI can support psychiatric care but can’t replace the human relationship at its center
STUDY: Torales J, Journal of Religion and Health 2026
STUDY TYPE: Philosophical and conceptual exploration (non-empirical)
FUNDING: Independent
Background
AI tools are moving into psychiatry in the form of documentation assistants, interactive textbooks, conversational companions and even chatbot therapists. Most ethical debate so far has focused on privacy, bias, and safety.
This paper asks a different question: does AI quietly change what we think a patient actually is. The author, a Paraguayan psychiatrist, uses Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, as a lens. It draws on the encyclical’s contrast between “Babel” (technical control, standardization) and “Jerusalem” (relationship, shared rebuilding) to frame two possible futures for digital psychiatry.
Key Points
The paper’s core claim is that AI can detect symptoms and patterns, but it can’t interpret what suffering means in a person’s life, whether that’s grief, moral injury, or spiritual disorientation.
Chatbots may ease loneliness for some patients by encouraging help-seeking, but for others the chatbots may deepen it by substituting for real human contact. Similarly, AI may free up clinician time for deeper listening, or it may erode attentiveness if summaries get trusted over patients’ own narratives (something suggested by a recent study).
Practice Implications
- Treat any AI tool as an aid, not a stand-in for the work itself.
- If a patient is using a mental health chatbot, ask whether it’s moving them toward human connection or away from it.
- Watch for signs of addiction, guilt about use, spiritual abandonment, or moral conflict. Those are clues to listen deeper and intervene.
—Chris Aiken, MD
Director, Psych Partners
Editor in Chief, Carlat Psychiatry Report
