Comment by NotAnOtter

I do not need to know if AI therapy is as good as Real Life therapy. It almost certainly is not.

I need to know if using it as AI therapy is actively harmful for some significant percentage of the population, and should be avoided. This arxiv does not discuss that as far as I can tell. LLM therapy is closer to an interactive journal. Journaling, getting your thoughts out, being forced to articulate grief in succinct words and pick out patterns - is all healing.

And most people cannot afford professional therapy.