Events and Seminars

Event	:	Symposium 2026 PsychE / PsychAI
Venue	:	Mount Sinai Medical Center, Goldwurm Auditorium Madison Ave. & 98th Street
Date	:	18/04/2026
Duration	:	8:45 AM - 16:30 PM
Extra Info	:	The psyche is said to be what makes us human. Often translated as “mind,” it refers to the totality of an our mental and psychological processes—consciousness, perception, thinking, memory, and emotions. But in ancient Greek, the concept more closely translates to “soul,” the immaterial but animating essence of one’s identity and individuality. In the Bible, body and soul are so integrated that when the soul leaves the body, there is no animating force and death is simultaneous. From this latter perspective, Identity and individuality define a human being’s existence. But do they still? In the mid-19th century, Darwin made it harder to accept the notion of a soul, demonstrating that humanity was on a continuum with soulless creatures like apes. Not much later, Freud laid the groundwork for envisioning ourselves as controlled by forces over which we had scant control. Now AI is emerging as a form of intelligence that is outpacing, and will potentially usurp our special place as cognitive beings. Is it antithetical to our modus operandi as clinicians? Clinicians tend to see their work as authentically human. We engage the entire person—acknowledging their individuality—and we do so cognitively and emotionally, at a very high level. We’re one-onone with people all day long, because we think each person’s individuality matters (as does our own). Psychoanalysis, psychodynamic psychiatry, psychotherapy, whatever your orientation, depends on one person helping another by offering words and ideas. insight and understanding, empathy, cognitive and behavioral approaches, maybe even carefully calibrated medications. No doubt, our interventions impact brain mechanisms and chemistry, but we like to think our way of helping is unique and personal. But now, certain aspects of our work are already better accomplished by AI. Diagnostically, AI is more accurate than a clinician’s experience. Input the DSM into AI, feed it a patient’s current symptoms, medical and psychiatric records, family and social history, and it will give you a correct diagnosis, psychodynamic formulation, and treatment plan. Still, how about the work of treatment like in psychotherapy? Isn’t that still the purview of clinicians, our special bailiwick? We read people, respond with care, even love. Surely, something artificial can’t do that as well. It can. Did you know that when AI is wired with an optical system, it is able assess human emotions better than highly-trained professionals (even CIA agents!)? It can say “You look sad” or “You seem angry” and then AI learns from the patient’s responses. It can run with the cues, and extrapolate. Not only behavioral and CBT approaches are manualized as treatments, but also psychodynamic and transference-focused therapies. Layering a RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) over AI produces a decent psychotherapist. It is currently being deployed effectively to help treat patients with depression and anxiety conditions as well as dementias and other cognitive issues. Teletherapy is well established as therapeutic. But what if you can’t tell if the entity on the other side of the screen is a person or AI? We’re already at that “deep-fake” tipping point in podcasts and movies— except now the patient can be in control. Want Meryl Streep or Robin Williams to be your therapist? Just select as an option on the screen. It’s also true that we develop transferences to AI in the ways we do with each other. Developing and interpreting transference is often integral to deeper treatments. So, where does that leave us as to using AI in our work or, more broadly, our daily lives? Do we or will we still have a profession? If so, what shape will it assume? How do we pursue our work ethically and responsibly? How do we experience our own clinical individuality? We need to collaborate with AI in ways we haven’t yet figured out, but that we need to need to explore. There really is no alternative. Karnac authors Amy Levy and Danielle Knafo will be speakers.
Web Link	:	https://internationalpsychoanalysis.net/symposium-2026-artificiai-intelligence/