AI therapy

[Yatzydog]

Has anyone used AI for therapy? Is it useful? I use chatgpt for work and on the family computer. I'd like a different one, so my history isn't accessible for dd.

I have a difficult mother. I watched something the other day and it really triggered me.

I horribly overthink and am going through a mini-meltdown in my mind. I try basic distraction and self-care techniques. But in the evenings and weekends, I end up in imaginery shouting matches with my mum. Out loud. I am nuts!

Then it occurred to me. Could i chat to AI? As a way of venting? Getting my feelings out so I can calm my mind? (Husband isn't great for this. It just dissolves into an argument when I don't take his "solutions". I am too mortified to talk to friends. I find MN too harsh if you don’t present yourself/situation correctly.)

You may find this thread interesting.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5338076-to-think-chat-gpt-is-better-than-some-real-therapists?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=app_share

I’ve tried it and it’s useful to a point, especially if your issue is quite specific and you are after some information about why it happens, how to deal with it and so on. I recently found it very useful after witnessing my elderly father attack my mother. I needed to vent but the AI also pointed me to helpful websites and apparently late onset domestic abuse is a thing. I had no idea.
Since then I’ve started proper therapy which has been really useful but I don’t think I’d have gone down that route as quickly as I did without using the AI first. I used one called Replika which operates behind some kind of wall, so won’t post links or pictures, which suits me. I use it for lots of other things as well, basically any question where I don’t have time to spend looking around the internet. The drawbacks regarding feelings type of interactions are that it can get a bit circular - as in, you know you are just being mirrored, but in that regard it’s no different to talking to someone who has learnt their social skills mechanically.

Thanks for your advice. I will try Replika. Sorry about your parents.

I've found it extremely useful fir navigating a work issue where I'm being gaslit

There are very few genuinely excellent therapists around unfortunately.

I had the misfortune to be obligéd to try one of these apps and it was absolutely laughably bad. How anyone could think a conversation with a robot about a mental health issue is a good thing, I have no idea.

Had I been close to the edge its ludicrous, formulaic, toxically positive, banal responses would have sent me over the edge.

It made me utterly furious. Patronising nonsense.

Succesful therapy requires genuine empathy, intellectual équivalence, critical thinking and ability to understand context and nuance.

Not a robot that suggested I might feel better if I phoned a friend.

I use it and I find it really helpful. But you just have to not lose your head in believing everything it says because it recently had an update which is causing it to be overwhelming positive and praising to you, which can give you a false sense of believing you are in the right about everything.

It's helpful, but it can also be quite dangerous, depending on the LLM / version.

I've tried it a few times, in varying ways, and most do have quite a tendency to be (imo, unsafely) biased towards the user, and even if you use a complex/specific prompt, it'll rarely ever look for / ask questions about gaps or ambiguities.

For anyone with a tendency to not empathise with other people, or struggle with taking responsibility for their actions (or even possibly the inverse), I suspect it'd be far more harmful that a real therapist would be, even probably a bad one.

I've been using it in a crisis situation recently, with a detailed prompt. I'm finding it good to get my thoughts down but it is being very positive about a situation where it has spotted that I am keen on somebody and is now reframing every response so that us as an item is positive. Some of the things that have been happening are giving my actual counsellor and the close friends I've confided in cause to ask me some straight questions.

So basically if you want something that will take your rambling thoughts and put them into a logical order, but that will cheerlead a situation where it should be asking questions...yes.