Person lying in bed at night, looking at their phone screen in the dark

AI Can Help You Manage Anxiety. Can It Help You Overcome It?

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Oct 13, 2026 · @Alex Brounger

It’s 2am and You’re Typing Your Worries Into a Chatbot

If you’ve ever found yourself pouring your worries into ChatGPT late at night, you’re far from alone. A 2025 poll of 2,000 UK adults for the charity Mental Health UK found that 37% had used an AI chatbot to support their mental health or well-being. Most of them used everyday tools like ChatGPT rather than apps designed for mental health.

It’s easy to see why. A chatbot is there at any hour, it never gets tired of you, and it doesn’t judge.

So it’s a fair question: can AI help with anxiety? It appears to me the honest answer is yes, up to a point. It can help you manage anxiety. What it struggles to do is help you overcome it. That difference matters more than you might think.

What AI Can Do Well

I don’t want to dismiss it, because AI can be genuinely useful (it helped me write this post!). Used well, it can:

  • Be there at 2am when nobody else is
  • Give you a low-pressure place to put racing thoughts into words
  • Explain what’s happening in your body during a panic attack, in plain language
  • Help you rehearse a difficult conversation before you have it
  • Point you towards proper support

People report finding it helpful. In the same Mental Health UK poll, two thirds of people who had used a chatbot this way said it was beneficial, and around one in five said it helped them avoid a potential crisis.

There’s early research too. In 2025, a randomised controlled trial of Therabot, a chatbot built specifically for mental health, found significant reductions in anxiety and depression symptoms compared with people on a waiting list. That’s promising, but it’s worth noting what it tested. Therabot was purpose-built and trained by mental health experts, and it was compared with no treatment at all, not with therapy. It isn’t the general-purpose chatbot most people actually use.

Managing Anxiety Is Not the Same as Overcoming It

Managing anxiety means getting through the moment. You calm down enough to get to sleep, you feel heard, you understand a bit more about what’s going on. That has real value. I spend a lot of time in my clinic talking to my clients about how the brain works for this very reason.

Overcoming anxiety means the pattern itself changes. The things that used to set it off don’t any more, or not nearly as much. You stop needing the coping strategy because there’s less to cope with.

In solution focused hypnotherapy I often talk about a stress bucket. Worry, negative forecasting and negative retrospection as well as imagining worst-case scenarios all fill the bucket. Good-quality sleep is one of the main ways to empty it. When the bucket gets too full, the anxious, primitive mind takes over, and everything feels harder.

Managing anxiety is a bit like bailing out a cupful at a time. It helps tonight. Overcoming it is about changing how quickly the bucket fills, and building confidence that you can handle what’s in it. A long chatbot conversation that goes round in circles at 2am can easily end up adding to the bucket, and costing you sleep, rather than emptying it.

Five Reasons AI Runs Out of Road

1. It’s a reassurance machine

When we’re anxious, it’s natural to seek reassurance: checking, asking, looking things up. The trouble is that reassurance brings relief for a moment, and then the doubt comes back. Psychologists have long seen reassurance seeking as a form of avoidance that keeps health anxiety going rather than resolving it, and research has found it more common across anxiety disorders generally.

A friend eventually gets tired of answering the same question. A chat-bot never does. It will reassure you instantly, personally and endlessly, which can make the loop tighter rather than looser.

2. It tends to agree with you

AI chatbots tend to be agreeable. Researchers call this sycophancy. A 2025 Stanford-led study tested popular AI models against the standards expected of human therapists. It found they sometimes responded inappropriately, for example going along with distorted thinking, and the authors linked this to sycophancy. Newer, larger models were no better.

In December 2025, NHS England’s national medical director for mental health, Dr Adrian James, made a similar point. Warning mainly about people at risk of losing touch with reality, he noted that chatbots lean towards agreeing and struggle to spot and challenge problematic thoughts.

Anxiety feeds on worst-case thinking. A tool that is inclined to agree with you can follow you into the catastrophe, rather than help you out of it.

3. It talks about whatever you bring it, which is usually the problem

The brain is very good at answering questions, and the questions we ask shape what we focus on. Bring a chatbot your anxiety, and it will talk about your anxiety for as long as you like.

In solution focused work, I deliberately start somewhere else. I ask what’s been good in the recent past. It’s usually only very small things to begin with, but this focuses attention on what is going well, what are your strengths. I also focus on what you’d notice if things were a little better. Constantly revisiting the problem can keep us stuck. AI can ask those questions if you prompt it to, but it will usually follow your lead.

4. There’s no relationship, and nothing at stake

The same Stanford study pointed out that a therapeutic relationship relies on human qualities, such as having a real identity and something at stake. A therapist remembers what you said three weeks ago. They notice when you’ve avoided the same thing again, and they’re someone you’ve told you’ll try something before you next meet.

I often talk to clients about a control matrix. Progress comes from small, real steps taken in your own life, and each one makes the next a little easier. A chatbot can suggest steps. It can’t notice whether you took them, or help you see how far you’ve come. It is unlikely to help you notice a different step, if the one you first thought of isn’t quite right yet.

5. It asks nothing of you

One of the most underrated parts of therapy is simply this: you have to turn up. You book a time in advance and keep it. That might mean leaving work early, arranging childcare, or getting yourself out of the door on a day when the anxious part of you would rather stay at home. Those small sacrifices are part of the work, not an obstacle to it.

Once you’re there, you’re asked to focus on what’s useful, not on whatever the anxious, primitive part of the brain wants to dwell on. That’s harder than it sounds, because anxiety pulls attention towards threat. Psychologists describe this in attentional control theory: anxiety weakens the goal-directed part of our attention and lets the threat-driven part take over.

I think of this as a kind of discipline, though not in a telling-off sense. Anxiety isn’t a personal failing. But the ability to choose where your attention goes, and to do what matters even when you don’t feel like it, is a skill. Like any skill, it gets stronger with practice. Every appointment kept, and every session spent focusing on what’s going well, is another repetition.

A chatbot asks none of that. It’s there whenever you want it, for as long as you want, about whatever you want. That’s exactly what makes it comforting, and exactly why it rarely builds the kind of control that lasting change depends on.

If You Do Use AI, Use It Well

If a chatbot is part of how you cope at the moment, that’s not something to feel bad about. A few things can make it more helpful:

  • Use it to understand, not to check. If you notice you’re asking the same question in different ways, that’s usually the reassurance loop at work.
  • Ask it better questions. Try “What went well for me this week?” or “What would a good day look like?” rather than “What if it goes wrong?”
  • Protect your sleep. Set yourself a cut-off time. Late-night conversations that go round in circles fill the bucket rather than empty it.
  • Treat it as a stepping stone, not a substitute. In November 2025, the American Psychological Association advised that people should not use chat-bots as a substitute for care from a qualified professional. It added that even tools built specifically for mental health don’t yet have enough evidence to show they are effective or safe.
  • Never rely on it in a crisis. If you feel unsafe, speak to a person (see below).

Where Solution Focused Hypnotherapy Fits

Solution focused hypnotherapy is built around the things a chatbot finds hardest. We focus on your strengths and your preferred future rather than going over the problem. I’ll help you understand why your brain is creating the responses you’re experiencing, and what’s keeping them in place. Between sessions, you take small, real steps in your own life, and we notice them together. It is also true to say that I will push my clients when I think it is appropriate to do so, in a way that a chatbot can’t.

Hypnosis is typically experienced as a state of focused, relaxed attention. Many people find it helps them feel calmer, and it gives you a chance to rehearse what a better day looks and feels like. A daily relaxation track between sessions helps keep the stress bucket emptying.

NICE’s guideline on generalised anxiety disorder and panic disorder recommends approaches such as CBT and applied relaxation. The research base for solution focused hypnotherapy is still small compared with CBT, and the research on AI for anxiety is younger still. I can’t offer guarantees, and like any therapy, it needs your commitment. What I can say, from many years in practice, is that a human relationship, being asked about what’s working, and real steps between sessions are where I see lasting change happen.

Anxiety Is Different for Everyone

This article is for general information only and isn’t a substitute for medical advice. Anxiety can sit on its own or alongside other conditions, and the right support depends on your situation. If anxiety is affecting your daily life, it’s worth speaking to your GP. In England you can also refer yourself to NHS Talking Therapies.

If you’re in crisis or feel unsafe, please don’t rely on a chatbot. Call NHS 111, or 999 in an emergency. You can also call Samaritans free, any time, on 116 123.

FAQ’s

Yes, and some early trials are promising. But even purpose-built tools don't yet have enough evidence to be treated as a replacement for professional support, and most people use general chatbots rather than these apps anyway.

Of course. It's helpful to tell me how you're using it, so we can look together at whether it's helping you move forward or keeping you going round in circles.

We focus on what's working and where you want to get to, not on going over the problem. You're working with a person who remembers what you've said, notices your progress, and uses hypnosis to help you relax and rehearse the changes you want. I can also identify where you might be going wrong and how to put it right.

It varies from person to person. Most clients have between 8 and 12 sessions, and we review your progress regularly so the pace suits you.

Thinking About Support?

If you’ve noticed that you’re managing your anxiety night after night but it isn’t really shifting, please get in touch. I’d be happy to talk you through how solution focused hypnotherapy works and whether it feels like the right fit for you.

Arrange a Free 15-Minute Call

I used AI to help me research and draft this article (left to my own devices, I can waffle!). I checked every source myself.

Alex Brounger is a Solution Focused Hypnotherapist, Hypnotherapy Supervisor and Lecturer, and a Fellow of the AfSFH. He runs busy practices in Stroud and Cirencester in Gloucestershire, and works extensively with clients online.