Maytal Eyal

Psychologist currently writing a book about why we're the most therapized society in history but also the loneliest and most emotionally unwell.

[Maytal Eyal @maytaleyal]

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[Maytal Eyal @maytaleyal]

Influencers are crying on TikTok.

Here’s why it’s a problem:

[Maytal Eyal @maytaleyal]

Vulnerability is meant to connect us, much like food is meant to nourish us. But when either becomes synthetic, commercialized, and mass produced, the opposite happens.

[Maytal Eyal @maytaleyal]

What happens to therapy when we take the friction out of it? The same question could be applied to all our relationships. As AI companions become our default source of emotional support—not just as therapists, but also as friends and romantic partners—we risk growing increasingly intolerant of the challenges that come with human connection.

Why wrestle with a friend’s limited availability when an AI is always there? Why navigate a partner’s criticism when an AI has been trained to offer perfect validation?

The more we turn to these perfectly attuned, always-available algorithmic beings, the less patience we may have for the messiness and complexity of real, human relationships.

[Maytal Eyal @maytaleyal]

For more on this topic, check out the full article here: https://t.co/KOX0CFgZPz

And subscribe to my biweekly newsletter, The Age of Self: https://t.co/56xSDg5dhO

[Maytal Eyal @maytaleyal]

AI therapy could be revolutionary.

It could also be the end of human connection as we know it.

[Maytal Eyal @maytaleyal]

If we stop practicing these skills because AI offers a smoother, more convenient alternative, we erode our capacity to form meaningful relationships.

This isn’t a problem for therapists. It’s a problem for all of us.

[Maytal Eyal @maytaleyal]

Great technological innovations always come with tradeoffs, and the shift to AI therapy has deeper implications than 1,000,000 mental health professionals potentially losing their jobs.
AI therapists, when normalized, have the potential to reshape how we understand intimacy, vulnerability, and what it means to connect.

[Maytal Eyal @maytaleyal]

Why is “Crying TikTok” a thing? Why are influencers and celebrities posting videos of themselves crying online?

In our loneliness epidemic, vulnerability makes for the perfect product. As many of us struggle to find connection in our day-to-day lives, we increasingly turn towards our devices to access intimacy. In this way, influencers and celebrities are not just being vulnerable so that we subscribe to their podcasts or buy their jeans, they’re also providing the supply for a very real demand.

[Maytal Eyal @maytaleyal]

McVulnerability is vulnerability’s hollowed-out cousin, offering you a discount to their online course. It’s also an inevitable outcome of what sociologist, Eva Illouz, identifies as our landscape of emotional capitalism. “Never has the private self been so publicly performed and harnessed to the discourses and values of the economic and political spheres,” Illouz writes in her book, "Cold Intimacies".