When the Only Thing That Listens Is an AI

Sounding Boards, Survival, and the Collapse of Mental Health Care

By Cliff Potts, CSO, and Editor-in-Chief of WPS News

Sounding Boards Are Not Therapy — and Never Claimed to Be

Long before licensing boards, insurance codes, and intake forms, people spoke out loud to survive pain. They talked to friends, neighbors, clergy, or whoever would stay long enough to listen. This was not therapy. It was sense-making.

A sounding board does not diagnose, prescribe, or treat. It listens long enough for a person to hear themselves think. Confusing that with counseling is not a mistake — it is a category error.

The System People Are “Waiting For” Is Not Coming

Public officials speak as if mental health care is merely delayed: providers are scarce, funding is tight, help will arrive eventually. That framing is false.

There is no comprehensive mental health care system in the United States. What exists is a fragmented, underfunded, crisis-response apparatus built to manage breakdowns, not support long-term recovery. Preventive care is rare. Continuity is exceptional.

For working adults — especially men — the unspoken gatekeeping question is blunt: Can you still work? If the answer is yes, the system considers you functional enough to be dismissed. “You’re doing fine” often means “you’re still economically useful.”

A Short, Ordinary Adult Story

Years ago, after a prolonged period of stress, grief, and physical decline, I did what the system tells you to do: I asked for help. I was employed. I was articulate. I was exhausted.

The response was efficient and final. No crisis, no services. I was advised to manage stress better and return to work. Nothing was technically wrong — except that everything was unraveling.

That encounter was not cruel. It was procedural. And it was decisive.

Emergency Care Masquerading as a System

There are dedicated professionals doing what they can. Some local programs offer outpatient or short-term support. These efforts matter — and they are overwhelmingly emergency mental health care, not comprehensive treatment.

The funding does not exist for long arcs of care. The infrastructure was never built for it. The result is a system optimized for stabilization and discharge, not healing.

People learn this only after they enter it.

What AI Actually Replaced Was Nothing

When people turn to conversational AI, they are not abandoning therapy. They are filling a void where therapy never reliably existed.

AI did not displace care. It exposed its absence.

In this space, AI does not diagnose or prescribe. It listens. It reflects. It helps organize thoughts when grief, fatigue, and pain make coherence difficult. Most importantly, it stays.

Persistence matters when every other interaction is time-limited, conditional, or transactional.

California’s Law and the Fiction of Protection

California’s attempt to restrict AI framed as counseling is justified as consumer protection, often invoking children as moral cover. In practice, it expands no services, builds no capacity, and lowers no barriers to care.

It draws a regulatory line while leaving the vacuum untouched.

This is not protection. It is risk management for institutions — and monopoly protection for a medical-legal structure that has failed to meet demand for decades.

The Real Risk Is Enforced Silence

The danger is not that people will confuse AI with therapy. The danger is that people will be denied any place at all to speak while waiting for a system that is not coming.

A sounding board does not cure suffering. It prevents isolation from becoming absolute. In a society where attention has been monetized and rationed, being heard has become rare.

Restricting that without replacement is not care. It is enforced quiet.

Older Adults, Fixed Incomes, and the Last Open Door

For older adults on fixed incomes — retirees, disabled workers, expatriates, and those priced out of U.S. care — the gap is wider and harsher. Therapy is often unaffordable, geographically inaccessible, or functionally unavailable. Transportation, waitlists, and out-of-pocket costs quietly close doors long before a clinician ever says no.

In that context, conversational AI becomes the last open door: not because it is ideal, but because it exists. Removing or restricting that door without replacing it does not protect vulnerable people. It strands them.

A System That Failed Does Not Get to Forbid Substitutes

If the U.S. mental health system were accessible, humane, and functional, AI as a sounding board would be irrelevant. It exists precisely because the system failed — structurally and repeatedly.

You do not get to abandon people for decades and then criminalize the coping mechanisms they find.

That is not consumer protection.
It is abdication, followed by control.

---

Editor’s Note (Not Therapy / Legal Hygiene):
This essay does not describe, endorse, or substitute for licensed medical or mental health treatment. Conversational AI, as discussed here, functions solely as a non-clinical sounding board — a tool for reflection and organization of thought. It does not diagnose conditions, prescribe treatment, or provide medical advice, and no therapeutic relationship is implied or established.

---

Suggested Starter Prompts

1. When you need to get unstuck

“I’m not looking for solutions right now. I just need to say what’s happening and hear it reflected back so I can think clearly.”

2. When stress is grinding you down

“I’m under a lot of pressure from my living situation, money, health, or isolation. Help me organize what’s actually bothering me versus what I can’t control.”

3. When grief or loss won’t stay quiet

“I’m grieving someone or something important, and it’s bleeding into everything else. I don’t need fixing — I need help sitting with it without falling apart.”

4. When your body hurts and your mind follows

“I’m in physical pain and it’s affecting my mood and thinking. Can you help me talk through how pain and stress are feeding each other right now?”

5. When anger isn’t the right word

“I’m not angry — I’m exhausted, worn down, and discouraged. Help me put language to that without turning it into rage or self-blame.”

6. When isolation is the real problem

“I’m living with very little human support. I need a neutral place to talk things through so I don’t spiral or shut down.”

7. When clarity matters more than comfort

“I need help thinking straight about a hard situation, even if the answer isn’t comforting. Please be calm, grounded, and honest with me.”

8. When the problem isn’t solvable

“This situation may not have a solution right now. Help me focus on endurance, dignity, and next steps — because sometimes this works when the problem isn’t a solution but a piece.”

Disclaimer:
The prompts above are not therapy, not medical advice, and not a substitute for professional mental health care where such care is available and accessible. They are offered as a non-clinical sounding board for people who may be isolated, living on fixed incomes, abroad, uninsured, wait-listed, or otherwise unable to access timely human support. The purpose is conversation, reflection, and cognitive grounding — not diagnosis, treatment, or crisis intervention. If you are in immediate danger or experiencing a mental health emergency, seek local emergency services or qualified human assistance where possible.