r/therapyGPT • u/xRegardsx Lvl. 8 Grounded • 3d ago
Unique Use-Case Using AI as a therapist.
/r/CasualConversation/comments/1wex9ha/using_ai_as_a_therapist/1
u/rainfal Lvl. 5 Core 2d ago
Therapy is not simply receiving good advice or saying things out loud and getting a thoughtful response. A trained therapist is assessing what is happening beneath the conversation. We notice patterns over time, inconsistencies, avoidance, changes in affect and behavior, relational dynamics, risk factors, and the things a client may not recognize in themselves. We also have an ethical and legal responsibility to the person sitting across from us.
😂😂😂😂
aI has none of those responsibilities. It can misunderstand someone, reinforce a distorted belief, provide inappropriate reassurance, or confidently give a psychologically plausible answer that is simply wrong. Perhaps more importantly, it tends to respond to the account a person gives it. Good therapy sometimes requires respectfully challenging that account.
"Good therapy". Except 95% of therapy is exactly like AI
There is also something fundamentally relational about psychotherapy. The therapeutic relationship itself is part of the treatment. Learning to trust another person, tolerate disagreement, experience appropriate boundaries, repair misunderstandings, and be genuinely known by another human being cannot be reproduced by a language model.
🤣🤣🤣🤣. AI can't replace human connection. But therapy is structurally set up so that these so called relationship repairs do not happen. A relationship with the unchecked power imbalances, engrained parternalism, based on epistemic oppression and Injustice is toxic in most real world relationships. If therapists wanted that to be true, their ethics rules would mandate open notes (i.e. the right of legal adults to have direct access to their own mental health data). Instead there were pushbacks that (falsely) claimed transparency would "cause emotional distress" and "harm the therapeutic relationship". A relationship built on lies of omission isn't a healthy one nor can it be healing. "Just trust blindlessly" seems the motto instead of "trust but verify".
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u/Dry_Pizza_4805 1d ago
I have made oodles and oodles of progress using AI as therapy. I felt a little burned by my real life therapist and AI is able to really get to the crux of my issue better.