Stepping Stones North Wales warns against the use of AI for counselling – especially over the Christmas period

19th December 2025

As the Christmas period approaches, Stepping Stones North Wales is urging the public, policymakers and technology companies to recognise a growing and deeply concerning trend: the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a substitute for professional, trauma-informed, counselling and therapeutic support.

Stepping Stones North Wales, which is based in Wrexham and serves communities across the six counties of North Wales, is a charity providing free counselling and support services to adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse across North Wales.

Christmas is a time when many people experience heightened loneliness, grief, trauma memories and emotional distress. For survivors of childhood sexual abuse and other forms of trauma, this period can be particularly triggering. At exactly the moment when compassion, safety and skilled human response are most needed, some are being encouraged – implicitly or explicitly – to turn to AI-powered chatbots for “counselling” or emotional support.

This is not only inappropriate; it is potentially dangerous.

Counselling is a skilled, relational, ethical practice grounded in trust, attunement and professional accountability. It involves risk assessment, safeguarding, trauma-informed care and an ability to respond to nuance, distress and disclosure in real time.

AI systems, no matter how sophisticated, do not hold professional qualifications or ethical accountability and they do not understand trauma in a human, embodied way. They can’t assess risk or respond safely to suicidal ideation or abuse disclosures. They can’t provide confidentiality safeguards equivalent to regulated services and they certainly can’t offer genuine empathy, presence or relational safety.

AI can mimic language. It cannot replicate care.

Commenting on the risks of AI, Della Austin, Clinical Lead at Stepping Stones North Wales said:

At Stepping Stones North Wales, we work every day with adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Many of the people we support have experienced profound betrayal, silencing and harm at the hands of others. Asking survivors to trust an unregulated algorithm with their most painful experiences risks repeating patterns of neglect and rejection.

Survivors deserve to be believed and supported by trained professionals who can offer consistency, boundaries and genuine human connection – not automated responses generated from datasets. Survivors deserve better.

The Christmas period brings additional risks. Reduced access to face-to-face services, increased alcohol use and family stressors, intensified feelings of isolation and heightened suicide risk.

In this context, reliance on AI for emotional support may delay people from seeking real help, provide false reassurance, or fail entirely in moments of crisis.

AI cannot sit with someone in distress. It cannot notice tone, silence, dissociation or danger. And it cannot take responsibility when something goes wrong.

Phil Eastment, CEO of Stepping Stones North Wales said:

We are not anti-technology. Indeed, at Stepping Stones North Wales, embracing innovation is at the heard of everything we do. However, although AI may have a place in administration, research or service efficiency, it must never replace counselling, therapy or crisis support.

This Christmas – and always – emotional care must remain human.

We are calling on the public to seek support from qualified professionals and trusted organisations and on technology companies to make it clear that AI is not a substitute for mental health care. We are also calling on funders and policymakers to invest in accessible, human-led support services.

Human connection saves lives. Algorithms cannot.

If you or someone you care about is struggling this Christmas, please reach out to a qualified counselling service or a crisis line. Help from a real person can make all the difference.

The Live Fear Free Helpline is open 24 hours a day, 7 days per week, to provide support in both Welsh and English to provide confidential support or advice around domestic abuse, sexual violence or violence against women. The helpline is available on 0808 80 10 800 or at [email protected]