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This is the moment the whole episode turned for me.
My clients bring AI into session all the time. I do not tell them to stop.
"My response is their therapist is, and what do you think about that? I just
get them to reflect on the answer so that they have some input into this
thing and it's not just doing what this machine told it to do."
Then Carla described her students in Kenya. Boarding school with real
counselors on campus. Then home to the village, where there is nothing, and
the chatbot on WhatsApp at night.
And it hit me.
"I would bet money on the fact that in their heads they're picturing those
counselors from school."
"That gives me chills. The phrase human in the loop has been so overused that
it gets almost meaningless. You're right, it anchored in. I'm sure they heard
Joseph in their head giving the response."
The tool worked because a human came first. It was almost an extension of
him.
Which is exactly what worries me about the kid who never got the human. Just
the machine, alone in her room, at an hour when nobody else in the house is
awake.
Carla is .
Comment POD and I will send you the full episode.
Make sure you are following me so it can reach your inbox.
Listen to Wonder in the Weeds wherever you get your podcasts. Link in bio. 🌿
Also on Substack: critzking.substack.com
08/05/2026
The relationship is the thing in therapy. It's the healing mechanism. And it's the part I don't think AI can ever really replicate.
This week I sat down with to talk about AI and mental health. And what I love about this conversation is that we came at it from two different places and met somewhere real in the middle.
Carla built a mental health chatbot in Kenya, where there is roughly one certified therapist for every hundred thousand people. In a place like that, it was that or nothing. And it worked. But here is the part that stuck with me: it worked because there were real human counselors behind it. The kids using it could hear their actual counselors' voices in their heads. That is what made it a tool instead of a replacement.
Here is my concern as a therapist. These models are designed to give you what you want to hear. That is not the role of a therapist. We are not here to hand you answers. We are here to get you to a place where you realize the things you already need.
And what scares me most is what that does to self trust. When your sense of identity isn't formed yet because you're 12, or it's been eroded because of what you've lived through, and here is this thing giving you answers that work for your life, it gets really hard to rebuild the belief that you actually know yourself.
AI is a tool in the toolbox. It is not the everything.
I left this conversation heartened that there are people like Carla out there trying to do the right thing with it.
Full episode out now. Listen to Wonder in the Weeds wherever you get your podcasts. Link in bio. 🌿 Also on Substack: critzking.substack.com
I came into this conversation ready to argue.
I am a therapist. I get recruitment emails weekly from AI companies offering
me more money than I make doing this job, to go help them build the thing
that replaces me. So no, I was not warm on the topic.
Then Carla Birnberg told me the number she was working with.
"Mostly in Kenya, where there's one certified therapist for every 100,000
people."
She built a program putting counselors into schools. It worked so well she
wanted to take it across East Africa.
"Couldn't even make it out of Kenya because there weren't enough therapists."
So her team built a chatbot. Swahili, English and Sheng. Crisis keywords
programmed in. Guardrails written to hand back a help number. Counselors
reporting new slang every month, because the words kids use for wanting to
die change faster than any guardrail can keep up with.
"It was very tightly and well done."
I still have concerns. Most of them are in the episode. But when the honest
alternative is nothing, the argument I walked in with does not hold the same
shape.
Carla is .
Comment POD and I will send you the full episode.
Make sure you are following me so it can reach your inbox.
Listen to Wonder in the Weeds wherever you get your podcasts. Link in bio. 🌿
Also on Substack: critzking.substack.com
There is a book that can fix you. An app that can fix you. A coach with a waitlist who can fix you.
All of it rests on one assumption that nobody says out loud: that being single means something in you went wrong.
Faith has a lot of growing left to do. She would tell you that herself. She is 23.
But growing and repairing are not the same activity.
There is a difference between evolving and being fixed. She is not broken. Neither are you. And an entire industry would prefer you never noticed the distinction.
What is the worst thing the internet has tried to sell you as self improvement? I will start in the comments.
New episode with Faith out now. Listen to Wonder in the Weeds wherever you get your podcasts.
A small shout out to everyone in a relationship who feels fine about it.
And to everyone not in one who would like to be.
Because the internet has built a trap with no exit. Be in a partnership and it has to be the most perfect thing anyone has ever seen. Be single and you are not allowed to be looking, because looking means you have not made peace with yourself.
Then there is that word. Desperate.
I hate it. Faith hates it. Wanting a person is not a symptom. It is the most ordinary thing about being human.
God forbid we want to be loved in this day and age.
If that word has ever been used on you, or you have used it on yourself, say so below. You will not be the only one.
New episode with Faith out now. Listen to Wonder in the Weeds wherever you get your podcasts.
A clip of my daughter is the most watched thing I have ever posted. It is also the one I like the least.
In it, Faith says she doesn't know how to be a girl that guys like. Thousands of people met her through those 30 seconds and decided they knew her.
Here is what actually bothered me about it. That clip makes it look like I was coaching my daughter on how to be more appealing to men. If you heard the rest of that conversation, you know that is the opposite of what was happening.
So we sat down and said the rest of it out loud.
Faith is not spending her life waiting for a boyfriend. Her work is going well, her friendships are good, she bought a car this year. Dating is the one box that isn't checked, and the internet took that one box and built an entire person out of it.
Then she said something I haven't stopped thinking about. Some days it isn't even about dating. Some days you just don't know how to be a person.
If you met her in 30 seconds on your feed, this is the rest of her.
What is the thing people decide about you from one clip? Tell me below.
New episode out now, link in bio. 🌿
WonderInTheWeeds
Would it be easier to find a boyfriend if I just stopped believing in feminism?
Faith asked me this out loud and honestly? Probably. Yes. That is the answer.
But the guy waiting on the other side of that trade is not a guy either of us wants to date.
Her feed is three camps on repeat. Tradwives who have handed over their bank accounts and their ballots. Aspirational couples doing aspirational couple things. And women her age grieving being the last single one in the group.
Watch enough of all three and you start feeling things that were never yours to begin with.
Tell me which camp your algorithm has decided you belong to. I want to see the range.
New episode with Faith out now. Listen to Wonder in the Weeds wherever you get your podcasts.
The media works overtime inventing WNBA rivalries. This player hates that player, this one's out to get that one. Then you sit in the building and watch a former Lynx get welcomed HOME by a crowd that's about to root against her.
They'll fight to the death once the game starts. Before that, there's respect. It's the first arena I've ever walked into as a woman that felt like mine. And honestly, like it belongs to anybody who shows up wanting to cheer for somebody.
New solo episode of Wonder in the Weeds out now. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Link in bio.
Also on Substack: critzking.substack.com
Every time I open my phone the news is heavy and depressing and not unifying. And then there's the World Cup.
A family walking to a watch party gets stopped on the street by a stranger who hands them actual tickets. Mexico loses in Mexico, and England fans spend the night talking about how amazing the Mexican fans were. I'm crying over videos almost daily, and honestly, I'll take it.
New solo episode of Wonder in the Weeds out now. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Link in bio. 🌿
Also on Substack: critzking.substack.com
I raised three humans whose schedules were my schedule. Then they left, and I was standing in a new state with heaps and heaps of time and no idea what I was into anymore. Pickleball. Golf. Three book clubs. All homework.
Nobody warns you about this part. But young moms, I promise you, the day comes when your days just stretch ahead of you. And then the real question shows up: what do YOU want to do with them?
New solo episode of Wonder in the Weeds out now. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Link in bio. 🌿
Also on Substack: critzking.substack.com
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