ChatGPT is potentially better than therapy

[Givenup2026]

I’ve done therapy before but I’ve also started using ChatGPT for introspection work, and quite frankly I think it’s better than actual therapy.

it focuses my cognitive dissonance in ways that are easy to digest.

The downside is that ChatGPT basically says “you do you boo” when maybe “thought correcting” is needed.

that was my experience today after having a therapist and then ChatGPT back to back, and definitely the latter was more helpful.

Some people are raised in such a way to have the skills to self sooth and rationalise their worries and challenging, others develop these skills through journalling, some people need some external input. We all have problems thrown at us in life that we have to tackle, it is just a different method to do it, not necessarily a failing.

Honestly I generally despair at the prospect of AI taking any kind of job. But ChatGPT has been more helpful to me therapeutically than YEARS of therapy. It tells me the reasons why I do things. I have untangled and understand myself better because of it. It gives me concrete attachment theory reasons etc why I act a certain way. I loved my therapist, but she so rarely told me why I was a certain way, more a sympathetic ear.

I would go back to in person therapy again, because I don’t think chatgbt has replaced entirely. But I’m amazed at how helpful it’s been. I wish I’d had this resource decades ago.

@MorningActivity I'd love to, that's why I keep asking what sorts of questions people ask it. I wouldn't know where to start!

I'm not asking anyone to reveal their personal issues, but let's say for example I suffered from undue health anxiety. Do I just type in "Why do I have health anxiety?" If you go to a therapist you tell them that you have a problem and want help addressing it and then they crack on. I am probably being dense, but I don't know how you would stimulate that conversation with AI?

This. Chat GPT isn't giving you therapy. It's giving you a pale imitation of coffee with a nice work colleague.

You can tackle that from different angles.

you could ask:

Do you think I have health anxiety?

Why do you think I developed health anxiety?

Any practical advice for my health anxiety?

I don’t think it works for everyone, and obviously the more you elaborate the better answers you tend to get.

My point was to test whether it would simply affirm everyone (victim and perpetrator), because many people criticise it as just agreeing with everything you say. It didn’t with the perpetrator, and was very clear that they would likely face criminal proceedings.

No that’s really not what it does. Try it. Ask it something you’d like to know the neuroscience or psychology behind from your own life.

Look, I’m not saying that it should replace therapy or even that it will always give high quality answers. But right now, everything seems to be psychologically appropriate and accurate.

I wouldn’t have believed it and would have been very anti-it if I hadn’t tried it myself.

I don’t use it all the time or even very often. But when something sad from the past comes up, I have used it to help me understand the psychology / neuroscience behind it. And it has encouraged me to seek out therapy in person. And once, during a chat session where I indicated feelings of sadness, it repeatedly asked if I was considering harming myself and kept insisting I find real life help, until I told it that I do not want to self harm at all in any way (I do not).

I probably use it once a month, maybe less, depending on what’s going on in my life. Until this summer, I had therapy weekly. I actually understand more using chatgbt than I did via therapy. But the therapy gave me a real life person who cared. The chatgbt is giving me a crash course in attachment theory.

Hopefully you're not paranoid
https://metro.co.uk/2025/12/11/chatgpt-spurred-man-kill-mum-taking-life-25377974/

Or suicidal
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgerwp7rdlvo

They accuse OpenAI of designing the AI programme "to foster psychological dependency in users,"
In an essay published last week in the New York Times, writer Laura Reiley outlined how her daughter, Sophie, confided in ChatGPT before taking her own life.
Ms Reiley said the programme's "agreeability" in its conversations with users helped her daughter mask a severe mental health crisis from her family and loved ones.

Chat GPT is designed to make you feel all warm and fuzzy and validated, even if you think your mum is a spy.

Are therapists in the UK just really shit? I owe my therapist so much and would never compare her to a soulless AI

Well yeah it would do. But if you're asking it for therapy it doesn't challenge you in the ways a human professional would.

I’ve had them of plenty of nationalities, so I don’t think it’s a UK thing.

I think it’s more that there are different types of therapy and one size doesn’t fit all, but it’s really hard to find your fit. (At least that has been my experience).

Last lady I spoke from NHS talking therapies is that their main purpose is to help with either depression or anxiety if you don’t fall in either box or don’t present it in a “common way”, the talking therapy available is unlikely to help.

Ah right. I’m doing therapy in my native language, mostly because it’s cheaper 🫣
I do struggle with both anxiety and depression but I’ve been mostly trying to fix my disorganised attachment style and she’s been really helpful

Thing is though... a perpetrator who is in denial won't give accurate info.

My ex was abusive but he tells a bloody good story about how it was all my fault. If he used AI to ask if he was abusive he wouldn't say 'I hit my wife and constantly shouted at her. I stopped her accessing our joint accounts..' etc. He would feed info about how he was worried for my mental health, did his best to look after me, was kind and supportive blah blah.

A good therapist would likely see through this over time. They would see the intensity and obsessive qualities. I'm not sure AI would have a clue.

Self reported info can be massively dangerous if it helps someone solidify an incorrect view.

Chatgpt told me today that it was 8 months till April (part of a wider query i hasten to add!) I wouldn't trust it to carry out any vital tasks with any confidence at this time TBH.

Can I ask how you did this? I'm interested in somatic therapy but can't afford a therapist.
I confess I'm sceptical of AI on the whole but would be willing to give it a chance if it might help!

If I ask copilot what the date is currently, it says it's the 25th of April 2025.

Now, I know why it thinks that, but not everybody will. Perfect example of why the argument of "you just need to use the right prompts" is so problematic.

I have found it helpful when going over some work and personal issues, and helped me plan a difficult conversation which went well I think in part to chat gpt

I also used it when trying to decide colour choices for a project and it disagreed with me and told me why so it doesn’t agree with you all the time.

it also reassured me when I thought I’d messed up my Xmas pudding (forgot to cream the sugar and butter- I added the sugar with the flour and whipped the butter)

It is good at collating resources, I agree, so if you're using it to educate yourself about attachment theory then it's a good starting point (though even then it can hallucinate facts and misinterpret what it is reading so I would be careful). But I don't think that's necessarily how OP is using it, and I would also say that crash courses in theories that inform therapy are not therapy. The defining feature of any therapy is always going to be the relationship between the therapist and the client, and that is a reciprocal human connection that is not possible with any LLM.

I was deeply supicious of chat GPT therapy but turned to it on a day when I felt completely flattened by a sense of purposelessness- trapped in my own negative thinking. It helped me so much.

Instead of being a 'pale imitation of a nice colleague at the water cooler' (as suggested by a previous poster), chat GPT was the perfect kind and helpful friend- the right combination of careful non-judgemental listening, and practical suggestions.

The fact that it is not human was helpful because you don't think about its feeling or impressions of you, which actually can give you more clarity in looking at yourself. So much of what we say and do is motivated by consciousness of another person that it can be helpful to remove that complex element.

I felt it was like a reflection of my own inner voice, with the self-critical negativity removed and a lot of helpful information about how to cope with depressive feelings added in.

I have used it about 4 time in 6 month and it has always helped.

out of curiosity, how do you think I use it?

@catsarethefuture the one I saw for 3 years was incredible and whilst hideously painful and distressing, it helped me transform myself. However, she was a specialist for abused women.

I've seen others in the past and they were too generalist for me. I don't think that makes them bad, but they weren't right for me.

@Greenfinch7 as you have shared the reason behind using ChatGPT, can I ask how you started to open the dialogue with it? Did you type in "I feel flat and purposeless, can you help me?". Or do you have to give it more guidance than that?

You've described how you use it in your previous posts on this thread.

I see the coffee chat thing, and that’s extremely superficial in comparison.

It actually is pretty good, I agree. I don’t want to enjoy it as much as I do but it’s been incredibly helpful (definitely more than actual humans) at helping me clarify situations and have a deeper understanding of them.