Comment by k8sToGo
7 days ago
I have been using LLM as a "therapist" for quite some time now. To be fair, I do not use it any different than I have used the internet before LLMs. I read up on concepts and how they apply to me etc. It just helps me to be much faster. Additionally, it helps working like a smart diary or something like that.
It is important to note that the word therapy covers quite a large range. There is quite a difference between someone who is having anxiety about a talk tomorrow vs. someone who has severe depression with suicidal thoughts.
I prefer the LLM approach for myself, because it is always available. I also had therapy before and the results are very similar. Except for the therapist I have to wait weeks, costs a lot, and the sessions are rather short. By the time the appointment comes a long my questions have become obsolete.
It is especially helpful when the reason of needing a therapy are humans. What I mean is - people treated you in a very wrong way, so how could you open in front of another human? Kind of a deadlock.
It makes sense people are going to LLMs for this but part of the problem is that a therapist isn't just someone for you to talk to. A huge part of their job is the psychoeducation, support and connection to a human, and the responsibility of the relationship. A good therapist isn't someone who will just sit with you through an anxiety attack, they work to build up your skills to minimize the frequency and improve your individual approach to handling it.
I mean I don't need therapy. I needed someone just pointing me in the right direction. That I had with my therapist, but I needed a lot more of it. And with that AI helped me (in my case).
I think it is not easy to just saying AI is good for therapy or not. It depends very much on the case.
In fact, when I wrote down my notes, I had found old notes that have come to similar conclusions that I did come to now. Though back then it was not enough to piece it all together. AI helped me with that.