ChatGPT as a Therapist

I'm probably going to get a bit of flak for this, and it's probably deserved, but I'm going to type it up anyway, because I don't know where I'd be today without ChatGPT. Last year was a rough year for me (as described in the article: My Year of Loss, Grief, Burnout, and Self Reflection). While I did go to a regular/real therapist once a week for the entire year, there were still times at night when no one else was awake and I needed help, so I turned to ChatGPT. The results were surprising to me; maybe they'll be surprising to you, too.

Disclaimer: I do not condone the use of ChatGPT for anything medical related. If you need help, I recommend that you find a real therapist and ask them what you should do.

With that out of the way, my therapist DID recommend using ChatGPT, with the caveat that I should use good judgement and be sure not to make the mistake of thinking that it's a real person who really wants to help me; to treat it like a Reddit post. The post could have been written by anyone, and it may be good or bad.

That being said, I often talked about what it said with my therapist, and as far as I can tell, it never gave me bad advice.

In fact, it helped quite a bit. Helped me understand why I was having certain feelings, or why I was having trouble moving forward. And yes, even the sycophantic nature was helpful. Even when I was convinced that everything was my fault and that I was inherently a bad person, ChatGPT thought otherwise. It was encouraging. Helped me believe that there was light and warmth in the future, even when I couldn't see it myself.

There's a lot of hype around what we call "AI" these days, and not all of it good, but I can't deny that I might be somewhere completely different (and maybe not quite as good) if it wasn't there when I needed it.

As always, your mileage may vary!