How to Use the ChatGPT Image Generator in Your Private Practice
Most therapists aren’t doing much with images in the therapy room. Unless you’re a somatic or art therapist, it’s a whole category of intervention that just goes untapped. But the ChatGPT image generator just got a major upgrade, and it might change that.
In this episode of Run Your Private Practice with AI, I’m sharing a prompt I found online that stopped me in my tracks and made me think about how we could bring this into the therapy room in a really meaningful way. From younger self and future self visualizations to parts work, grief, and boundary practice, I walk through a handful of ideas that came out of one powerful image and a lot of brainstorming.
AI Tips You Don’t Want to Miss:
- How to use the younger self and older self prompt to create a powerful therapeutic image with your clients.
- Creative ways to generate therapeutic images around grief, inner critic work, parts work, and boundary practice.
- Why you should have clients use their own ChatGPT to upload their own photos and keep PHI out of the process.
Mentioned in this episode:
AI Image Generation for therapeutic processing with clients
Link to the post in the Facebook group. https://www.facebook.com/groups/aiprivatepractice/posts/797556009854363
PROMPT:
Create a hyper-realistic, black and white portrait featuring the SAME female subject at two different ages, seated side by side, facing each other with a warm, natural connection.
LEFT SIDE (PAST):
A younger version of the subject as a child (around 6–8 years old), natural expression, soft smile, casual clothing (simple t-shirt and jeans), relaxed posture. She is looking slightly up toward her older self with curiosity and warmth.
RIGHT SIDE (PRESENT):
The present-day version of the SAME subject (adult woman, 40s–50s), maintaining exact facial identity, bone structure, eye colour, and features. She is seated, leaning slightly forward with hands gently clasped under her chin, looking at her younger self with a soft, reflective smile. Casual outfit (plain fitted t-shirt, denim jeans).
COMPOSITION:
• Studio-style portrait with a clean, neutral background (light grey or soft gradient)
• Both subjects centred, waist-up framing
• Eye-level camera angle
• Strong emotional connection between the two
• Balanced spacing between figures
• Minimalist, editorial composition
LIGHTING:
• Soft, diffused studio lighting
• Gentle shadows for depth
• High detail on skin texture, realistic tones
• Subtle contrast for a timeless feel
STYLE:
• Ultra-realistic, photographic (not illustrated)
• 85mm portrait lens look
• Shallow depth of field
• Fine detail, natural skin texture, no AI artefacts
• Cinematic, emotional, reflective tone
TEXT ELEMENTS:
• Top left above the child: “1986”
• Top right above the adult: “2026”
• Use a clean MODERN SANS-SERIF font (thin weight, spaced lettering, minimalist editorial style)
• Text should feel subtle, refined, and integrated into the image (not bold or playful)
IMPORTANT:
• Both versions must clearly be the SAME person at different ages
• Preserve facial identity with high accuracy
• No distortion, no stylisation, no cartoon effect
(PS: not my original prompt)
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Transcript:
[00:00:00] Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of our new private practice with AI. you guys know I like to share a little bit about like what I’m doing where I am before I hop into an AI episode. I am in the Dominican Republic right now. Some of you might know that I live in Airbnb, so I travel the world living in Airbnbs, taking my portable practice with me, using AI systems to, you know, help run my business better, my life better, more efficiently so I can enjoy the places where I’m at.
[00:00:27] Well, I was doing that so well right now that I totally forgot to record an episode this week. And my podcast ep- editor reached out to me and she was like, “Where’s the episode from this week?” So thank you, Taryn, for doing that. so I’m recording this from my hotel room in a resort down in the Dominican Republic.
[00:00:44] So much happened this week in AI. I wasn’t exactly sure where to even begin with it, but one thing that did happen is ChatGPT released a huge image generator update. So if you have custom GPTs or if you use ChatGPT and you haven’t for a while, go log in over there and you’re gonna see right on the main screen, there’s a new row of image galleries and suggestions on how to use it and they’ve just basically given images a huge upgrade.
[00:01:11] Now NanoBanana with Gemini was my original go- to for that. A few others have gotten pretty good with it, but ChatGPT, it’s okay. I would go there occasionally, but it wasn’t my first thought, but I’ve been playing around with it. It’s getting pretty good. So this is what I always talk about like why I would never go from like I’m just totally cutting off ChatGPT.
[00:01:34] I’m totally cutting off Claude, because every week something new comes out right now, probably if I wanted an image, I’d go to ChatGPT first and see how it did with the image. So that being said, I ran across a prompt on the internet. I wish I could remember whose prompt it was so I could give them credit because it’s truly an amazing prompt.
[00:01:54] It’s essentially, and I’ll put the prompt down in the show notes so you guys can copy it, but it’s essentially your older self looking at your younger self in a really thoughtful way and just kind of like looking back at each other in a really meaningful, like compassionate way. And of course the prompt wasn’t like from a therapist.
[00:02:11] It was just somebody like, “Isn’t this cool? Doesn’t that make you reflect back? What would you say to your younger self?” And I was like, “Gosh, therapists, we could totally use this in the therapy room.” Usually, typically, unless you’re like a somatic therapist or an art therapist, you’re not doing too many or too much work like with images in the therapy room with your clients.
[00:02:32] You might say, “Well, draw a picture of that or something like that. ” But if you’re not an artist, they’re not an artist. It’s like a whole modality or intervention category that at least for me goes totally untapped when I’m working with my clients. So after I did this, I was like, “This is like really powerful stuff if you can harness it.
[00:02:51] So of course I did some brainstorming around like, what are all the different ways we could use AI to help our clients draw or create therapeutic images that we can then process in the therapy room together. So the image I did, it’s in Run Your Private Practice with AI, the free Facebook group. I’ll put the link down below if you’re not in there.
[00:03:09] it’s powerful. So when I saw it, I was like, “Oh my gosh, I almost was like moved to tears.” I could see how using something like that would help you really process with your therapist or even yourself if you wanted to draw the image and go and journal about it. After I posted in the Facebook group, a lot of people were like, “Well, how do you do this?
[00:03:27] So take the prompt but upload a picture of yourself into ChatGPT. That’s where I did it and it, it’s amazing. And again, I wish I knew who created the prompt. If you ever listen to this and it, you’re like, “That’s my prompt. Let me know. I want to give you credit for it. ” So here’s some of the other ideas I came up with.
[00:03:43] And again, check out the prompt. The prompt is basically like, here’s a picture of me at, in 2026, and you give it the prompt that basically creates an exact replica of the person in the original image at age six, eight, 10, whatever you want, you can change it. And in the image it’s like, okay, 2026 is like the adult version and I think what year did I do?
[00:04:05] 1986 is the younger version, like the six or eight year old version. and they’re basically sitting there looking at each other and this little girl looks just like me. I mean, when I was a kid, you know, except for the hair is better. and I was like, wow, this is crazy. But anyway, all the different things you could do with it for that actual one that I did, a good prompt around that is what does your younger self need to hear from you right now?
[00:04:29] And I’m telling you, looking at that image and like saying that to your client and your client being able to look at the young, younger one, looking at the older one in this image is extremely powerful. Another idea that you could do with this, a future self visualization. And you know, you could do fancy prompts for this, but even if you go in and just play around with it, it’s gonna get the idea, do the original prompt that I’m giving you here, but then go back in and say, “Now let’s do it this way.
[00:04:53] Now let’s do it this way.” future self visualization. Client creates a realistic image of themselves five years from now and to process it, you would say, “What did this version of yourself and the future have to release, choose, or believe in order to make that version happen?” Powerful. So it’s basically like, what are your hopes and dreams in five years from now?
[00:05:15] Uh, create an image of what that looks like. Inner critic versus the compassion itself. So two versions of the client seated across from each other and processing it, you could say something like, “What does the critic say to the compassion itself? Or what does the compassionate self know that the critic doesn’t know?
[00:05:34] So processing like that, and you could even have ChatGPT generate a bunch of thoughtful self-reflection type questions around the image that you’ve created. Crazy, right? Grief conversation. Client creates an image symbolizing a person, a season, an identity or dream that they are grieving. Process what still needs to be said in this.
[00:05:55] So have the AI generate an image around that or, you know, have the person in the image looking back at the thing that they’re grieving right there inside of the image generation. Very powerful stuff. Boundary practice. Client imagines themself calmly saying no or standing firm. Client generates images of themselves calmly saying no or standing firm against somebody else.
[00:06:20] So maybe it’s like the scary boss at work or something like that. You could give a good description. My boyfriend does this all the time. He says, um, “Overachieving red head, feeling anxious about something.” And he’ll do these funny Chat- ChatGPT images and send them to me. So you can give a representation or have your client like give a representation of who this scary person is that they need to set a boundary with.
[00:06:42] Or maybe it’s their mother and you could be like, “What does your mom look like? ” Like even a character, caricature, I can never say that word, of what that person would look like. Parts work, visualization. Client visualizes different parts of themselves, such as a protector, an achiever, the exhausted part, the hopeful part, and you could process like in the image, which one of these parts needs attention today.
[00:07:05] before and after burnout, client creates two images, deplete itself and restore itself. And to process it, you can say something like, “What boundaries or support lives between these two images that you’ve created?” Unspoken, emotional portrait. This one’s good. I, about maybe two years ago now, it feels like there was a trend going around asking ChatGPT, be brutally honest with me, “What am I not even seeing about myself that you see in me draw an image or representation of that?
[00:07:35] That was super powerful. Mine was like, just like this burned out person that was on vacation and, basically was looking out at the beautiful scene, but like stuck in their office and I was like, “Oh my God, okay, ChatGPT is really trying to tell me something.” But you could do versions of that with ChatGPT now and the images are so good just to your client upload the picture of themselves with any of these prompts.
[00:07:55] You could even just write out the prompts and send it to them for homework. You could do it in the office, you could say, “Well, hey, pull up your ChatGPT right now and just put this in. ” So it’s like real time, like they see the image, they feel the emotion, that sort of thing. Very powerful. So back, oh, sorry, back to the unspoken emotional portrait.
[00:08:12] So client creates an image representing anger, sadness, shame, or a person or a scene or hope as a person or a scene that they’ve never processed before. So it’s like, gosh, I have this, like, feeling. I’ve always wanted to be able to do this thing and I’m just not brave enough to do it, right? Have ChatGPT create that image for them of them already doing it.
[00:08:35] Like, how powerful that is that? Like, affirmations, projecting in the future, visualization, all of that stuff has a ton of power, right? If we can see it, we can believe it. You know, it’s like the, um, remember the book, The Secret, how it just talked about manifestation. Imagine if you’re just manifesting these images of yourself doing things that you can’t even imagine yourself doing yet.
[00:08:57] And you have that like as a vision board or turn it into a vision board inside of ChatGPT, print it out and, and pin it up somewhere or put it on your home screen of your phone. There’s so many images you can do and help your clients do to, um, achieve different results in the therapy room. Um, the last one I thought of, client strength, portrait.
[00:09:17] Client creates an image of themselves, embodying resilience, courage, or peace. Process to that. What evidence already exists that this version of you is real, right? Super powerful. Now, in the group, I think I covered a lot of them, but in the group, a couple people also said, “Oh, I’m already doing it this way,” or, “I’m gonna use this for this sort of thing, so let me tell you guys what they said.”
[00:09:39] So you can get some more ideas. Somebody said, “I’ve done something very similar with parts work. It’s really powerful.” So I touched on that a little bit, but this is just echoing back that a lot of therapists are, are doing this type of work already with their clients. Somebody said, “Thank you for this. I plan to use this, especially with my adolescent young adult clients.”
[00:09:59] Wow, I don’t work with teens, but I could see how that’d be super powerful, like your future self projection. And somebody else said, also with teens, asking them to create an image of themselves 30 years from now and what they would want to hear from the future self and what would the future self say back.
[00:10:14] Somebody said it, they tried to do it with Claude and it was basically like ink blots. So don’t use Claude for this. I don’t think it would do that great of a job. Somebody else said, “I’m going to use this with IFS.” Oh, this is really important. Somebody said, “Would you ask the client for a particular picture or have them do it on their own?”
[00:10:31] So I would definitely not ask for their picture. I wouldn’t want to upload anything to ChatGPT that even could be slightly related to PHI, like somebody else’s picture. and I don’t know if ChatGPT does this anymore, but it used to only allow you to use your images because they were concerned about copyright.
[00:10:47] It might be better now, I’m not sure, but I would definitely have them pull up their phone, their own ChatGPT, upload their own image and then process it together. I would never want to put anything with PHI in that could be, you know, accessed by the LLMs, the large language models, because they’re not HIPAA compliant, they’re not HIPAA secure.
[00:11:07] So anyway, that’s my thought for this week. This is how I’m using AI this week. I hope this inspires you and let me know if you come up with a really cool way to use ChatGPT specifically with their new image generator, let me know. I want to hear, I want to add it over into the free Facebook group to give other people ideas as well.
[00:11:26] Okay, hope y’all have a great week. Bye.