Useful AI Prompts for Your Therapy and Coaching Journey

If you are working with a therapist or life coach, thinking about it, or simply trying to understand yourself a little better, journalling is a consistent useful thing you can do between sessions. It helps you process what came up, notice patterns you might otherwise miss, and arrive at your next session with something more useful than “I don’t know, it’s been a week.”

The difficulty is that staring at a blank page and being told to “reflect” is not always easy, particularly if your brain is tired, busy, or has strong opinions about productivity and does not consider writing about your feelings worthy of your time.

This is where AI can be surprisingly helpful. Not as a therapist or life coach, we have covered that in the previous post, but as a prompt generator. Something to ask you the questions to get you started.

Here are some prompts worth trying. You can type them directly into any AI tool, or use them as journalling questions in your own notebook if you prefer.

For Use Alongside Coaching

“I have a coaching session coming up. Help me get clear on what I most want to focus on and what has been getting in the way.”

“I want to make progress on [goal] but keep stalling. Help me explore what might be underneath that by asking me questions so I can talk to my life coach about it.”

“Help me review the last week, what have I achieved, what have I avoided, and what I want to do differently.”

For Understanding Stress

“I have been feeling overwhelmed recently. Can you ask me some questions to help me work out what is actually driving it?”

“Help me identify whether what I am feeling is stress, anxiety, burnout, or something else. Ask me questions one at a time.”

“I keep reacting strongly to [situation]. Help me explore what might be underneath that reaction.”

For Use Before or After a Therapy Session

“I have a therapy session tomorrow. Help me work out what I most want to bring to it by asking me questions.”

“I just had a therapy session. Can you help me reflect on it by asking questions rather than interpreting it for me?”

For The Middle of The Night

“I can’t sleep because my brain won’t stop. I don’t want solutions. I just want to get some thoughts out of my head. Can you just listen and ask the occasional question?”

A Few Tips

Ask it to use questions rather than advice. AI defaults to solving, and you often need processing more than solutions. Tell it your context so it understands who you are and what you are dealing with. If a response doesn’t feel right, tell it.

The goal is not to replace the therapeutic or coaching conversation, but to make more space for it.

Important

AI does not replace medical, psychiatric, or emergency care. If you feel you are experiencing significant distress, please contact your GP. If you are in the UK you can call the Samaritans on 116 123, or in an emergency call 999.