Talking with Machines: Making Sense of AI, Bias and Psychotherapy – Femma Ashraf

In this engaging and thought-provoking recorded seminar, Femma Ashraf explores the growing presence of artificial intelligence in contemporary life and what its emergence means for psychotherapists, therapeutic relationships, and clinical thinking.

AI technologies are increasingly entering spaces that intersect with psychotherapy. Many clients now use AI tools for journaling, emotional check-ins, exploring psychological concepts, and even as a form of informal therapy before bringing their reflections into the consulting room. As a result, therapists are increasingly encountering clients who arrive with AI-generated interpretations of their symptoms, relationships, and inner worlds, making it essential for clinicians to understand how these technologies shape meaning, identity, and emotional experience.

Recorded live on 9th March 2026, this seminar offers psychotherapists a clear, accessible and jargon-free introduction to artificial intelligence — what it is, how it works, and why it is becoming relevant to therapeutic practice. Rather than approaching AI as either threat or solution, Femma invites therapists to think critically, relationally, and ethically about the ways technological systems interact with human experience.

Alongside this wider exploration, the webinar also introduces several innovative AI tools developed by Femma herself for psychotherapy training and practice, demonstrating how technology might support reflective and culturally responsive work when used thoughtfully. These include:

• A generative client simulator that recreates racialised client experiences, allowing therapists and trainees to practise responding to micro-aggressions, racial trauma disclosures, and culturally shaped expressions of distress
• A culturally informed trauma-planning tool designed to prompt consideration of migration histories, community context, family narratives, and collective trauma when formulating therapeutic work
• The “Decolonising the Mind” GPT, created to challenge Eurocentric assumptions and support therapists in developing more culturally attuned formulations

Through discussion and practical illustration, the seminar explores how AI might support reflective, trauma-sensitive, and anti-oppressive practice, while also addressing the limits, risks, and potential biases embedded in technological systems.

With clarity and curiosity, Femma invites therapists to reflect on the ethical, cultural, and relational questions that arise as AI becomes increasingly visible in therapeutic contexts, and to consider how clinicians might remain grounded in human relational practice while engaging thoughtfully with emerging technologies.

✅ Listen anytime, anywhere — pause, replay, and reflect at your own pace.

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Video lecture and Power Point – 2 hrs: 

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Femma Ashraf is a third-year trainee psychotherapist in Transactional Analysis at Metanoia. She has over twenty years of experience in artificial intelligence and technology, and is the founder of Astronomical AI, a healthcare-focused AI startup, and Clinical Director at Patterns Institute, where she runs trauma-sensitive practice workshops. Her work explores how AI can be used ethically in psychotherapy, with a focus on trauma, decolonisation, and culturally attuned practice. She is particularly interested in helping therapists engage with issues of race, identity, and systemic bias, and in shaping responsible, inclusive approaches to emerging AI tools in therapeutic settings.