AI-Free Therapy: Virtual Sessions Across New York & Massachusetts

What AI-Free Therapy Means

No AI tool ever touches your session. Your words reach one place: the licensed clinician on the other side of the screen.

• No AI note-taker listens in, and no transcription service puts your words on someone else’s server.
• No recording is made, no audio is analyzed, and no outside algorithm summarizes what you said.
• I write my own clinical notes. Sessions exist only in the moment they happen.
• I have also turned off AI features and data storage options on the platforms my practice does use.
• Many practices now run AI scribes that record, transcribe, and write notes. I made a documented choice not to.

Why This Matters for Your Privacy and Progress

Therapy works to the degree you can be honest, and honesty depends on feeling safe.

• Research names trust and perceived confidentiality as prerequisites for honesty, and surveys show many clients already hold things back.
• People edit themselves in front of microphones. Even a helpful recording device changes the room.
• It is fair to wonder where a transcript goes if that company is breached, acquired, or subpoenaed.
• Health tech companies have had major breaches, and therapy transcripts are among the most sensitive records there are.
• HIPAA sets a floor for protecting health data, but protected data is not the same as data that never exists.
• Nothing is captured, so there is nothing to leak, sell, subpoena, or misuse.

What This Looks Like in Practice

The commitment is concrete, not a slogan. Therapy itself looks the same, just without a machine in the middle.

• Sessions run on a secure, encrypted telehealth platform with recording disabled.
• No AI scribe or ambient listening tool runs during sessions, ever.
• I write my own notes after each session, so your record reflects my clinical judgment, not an algorithm’s summary.
• On scheduling, billing, and telehealth software, I switch off AI features and unnecessary data storage, and keep reviewing it.
• The commitment is written into my privacy policy, so it is a documented standard you can hold me to.
• You still get the same integrated approach, in weekly 50-minute virtual sessions in New York or Massachusetts.

Who This Matters Most For

For some people, real privacy decides whether therapy feels possible at all.

• Survivors of complex and childhood trauma, for whom a recording system can echo the original breach of trust.
• LGBTQIA+ clients who may not be out everywhere and need certainty that nothing surfaces anywhere else.
• People in visible or sensitive careers: healthcare workers, attorneys, educators, public figures, executives, and therapists seeking their own care.
• Immigrants and people from communities with long histories of surveillance, who have good reason to be wary.
• Anyone who wants one hour a week that belongs entirely to them.

Questions Worth Asking Any Therapist

You deserve to know how a therapist handles your words. One who has thought it through will answer these without defensiveness.

• Do you use an AI note-taker or transcription service? Who runs it, and where are transcripts stored?
• Are sessions recorded for any reason, including training or quality review?
• What happens to my data if the tool’s parent company is breached or sold?
• Are AI features turned on in your practice and telehealth platforms? Many tools switch them on by default.
• My answers: no AI note-takers, transcription, or recordings, AI features off, and as little data collected as the work allows.
• If privacy has kept you from therapy, ask me these yourself in a free 15-minute consultation.

Further Reading

• Is your therapist using AI? What to ask
• What to expect in your first therapy session