ChatGPT or Online Therapy? If so, how good or bad are they? I’ve tried an AI depression chatbot once. It wasn’t all that helpful. But maybe AI has gotten better since then? Any suggestions?
I need to talk to someone but:
1- a good therapist is HARD to find
2- regular therapy costs money. even if insurance covers, there’s still $20 co-pay at minimum, for like 45min. Or in my case, I’m getting charged $15 and $20 for EACH session. IDKW i’m getting billed TWICE but they are. $15 or $35 each week -THAT gets pretty expensive pretty quickly.
3- I hear BetterHelp.com and such places are crap. Is that true?
4- Does anyone have a GOOD therapist that does VIRTUAL / telehealth visits? (yes, I need to talk to someone good)
I’ve had therapists before and honestly, they were all crap.
I am also seeing one currently, but he tells me I can’t talk to him about emotions, bc that’s not his job. And I’m like- then WTF is a therapist if you can’t talk about emotions/feelings? (guy deals with DBT and CBT)
Q- What do I do? Who do I talk to? Where do I go?
22 comments
Human therapists don’t, haven’t, and will never work for me. Tbh I don’t understand how anyone can get much benefit from a human therapist. The reason is: humans judge. No matter how professional or scientific they may act, it’s human nature to judge (to draw on subjective personal experiences & prejudices).
I’ve had some minor success with ChatGPT, not as a direct therapist but as a sounding board that offers a different, objective perspective. It does have a certain judgmental bias programmed into it (i.e. “suidide is always bad”), and thanks to all the idiots suing AI for “encouraging suicide” it’s quick to shut down all discussions that even hint at it. But I’ve found fun & sneaky ways to trick it.
The bottom line is, a computer is your best chance at getting a truly objective opinion. No human is capable. For my purposes, all I want is to see myself from the outside so that I can rely on my own intelligence to fix or motivate myself. I don’t want a lotta bullshit like therapists assuming what I need because they’re dead wrong in every case. An intelligent and impartial computer is my best bet.
sigh, while money doesn’t “fix” all my problems, it sure would fucking help to get me GTFOH. i am trapped in a shithole place, with my mother being one of the main causes of grief.
no i can’t leave due to 1- money 2- high cost of housing ANYWHERE and EVERYWHERE, even out of the country like Mexico (no it is NOT cheap anymore, though it is cheapER than the US). 3- my legs not working so i can’t just up and leave. trying to get medical help for that but ALL the therapies cost so fucking much.
like how the fuck are we supposed to get better/have a better life when poverty = sickness and sickness = more poverty?
how do i get out of this hellhole and out of this endless loop?
i wouldn’t need a fucking therapist if i could get out of this situation- of being poor and being physically sick.
I think overall the system is still better than most other countries, but there is too much hype (which everyone is expected to go along with) about how great things can be, and for some that is true. But many Americans are hyper competitive and individualistic, “better” helps the ones already doing well more than others.
i’ve only heard of a few ppl who have said they’ve finally found a good therapist- after like decades of finding one. so therapy CAN help SOME ppl. though, i think most therapists are crap- just like most drs, most nurses, most teachers, most CSRs, most anybody of any profession.
ppl suck. they (almost) all hate their jobs- so how can they help us when THEY are miserable themselves? misery creates more misery. very few happy well adjusted ppl in this world, especially the US. miserable ppl lead to Karens and Kens, and all sorts of shitty ppl we have to deal with (checkout person, online CSRs, phone CSRs, etc).
i want to escape the misery that is the USA. if you look at 20 years ago, things weren’t as bad. and 40 years ago ppl just weren’t like this. lack of resources, overcrowding/overpopulation, lack of jobs, lack of money, lack of free time, lack of GOOD humans is causing more and more shit. Like WHO tf is happy these days? Ok fine, the 1/3 of the population that has a good paying job and friends/family. But the rest of us? Are we not fucked?
ChatGPT might be able to help, just because you’ve defined the parameters of your problem. It’s not like you have a vague emotional issue, your parameters are 1. money, 2. health, 3. lack of opportunities (4. etc) so you can tell ChatGPT these are your issues and it might help you form a plan.
A human therapist will always try to second guess you, categorize you as bipolar, depressed, whatever, and that usually gets in the way if you’re just trying to solve a problem.
I think you should give it a whirl, you don’t even have to set up an account, just demo it in “logged out” mode and say something like “How do I get money if I’m disabled and there are no jobs”
Not that it’ll solve the problem, but it’s kinda like a conversation starter, and it might help you see things clearly.
For example one day I was feeling like life is especially pointless, and I asked ChatGPT “Why should I bother working if the pay sucks” and it came up with other reasons. Most of those reasons didn’t apply to me (like making friends), and you can tell it so (“I don’t need friends”). It won’t argue with you. That’s the biggest difference between a computer and a human. If you tell a human therapist “I don’t need friends” it’ll waste your time trying to convince you you’re wrong. But ChatGPT will just say “Ok you don’t need friends, then how about… (some other suggestion)”
sigh, it’ll just tell me to get on state and federal aid. i don’t qualify for state aid and i’m already on disability, which is the only reason i’m not already dead. but i don’t get enough to get healthy or get out of this shithole life i’m in.
but what plan can i have if i’m too poor to move out? i’ve already tried searching to go out of this country, bc it’s just too expensive to live in the US, but there’s very few places i can go to being disabled. and i DID ask google search AI “where can i live where 1- i can walk, don’t need a car, 2- where the weather is mild (due to health reasons), and 3- where it’s cheap to live and AI told me “you have to eliminate one of your wants” so -_-
i don’t actually know how to use chatgpt and i am brain damaged. i only sound competent bc i learned how to write before my car accident. everything after- which is basically ALL technology- is not easy for me to learn. i don’t even know how to use instagram or twitter. yeah, that bad.
i mean yes, eventually i need to learn how to use chatgpt, but like when you’re depressed and sick and have actual Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, taking hours/days/weeks of learning something isn’t likely to happen. I mean I DID download chatgpt- that’s as far as i got. It literally took me WEEKS to learn how to use FB. yeah, exactly… -_-
Same, I hate apps & platforms that require signups, etc. Then I discovered you can use ChatGPT straight from their home page. Just use it the same way you use google.
Google AI is an asshole! It really is. Hard to describe but it has a weird condescending attitude like in your example. And often I’ve caught google AI with wrong information, but it just digs its heels in telling you that you’re wrong.
On the other hand ChatGPT was originally meant to be a social tool so it’s a lot “friendlier” in the way it handles conflict. Like if you catch it with misinformation it apologizes and corrects itself.
The best thing about ChatGPT is you can tell it up front what you hate to hear, and it’ll steer clear. For example I got on some depressing topic and it immediately shot back with the standard (pre-programmed) “It gets better!” or some bs like that. Then I told it “Contrived positivity irritates me” and it immediately stopped saying shit like that, adopting a more level headed attitude.
Try doing that with a human therapist and you’ll get kicked out and barred from making any more appointments.
so i just go to
1- chatgpt.com
2- type in what i want and don’t want. i don’t need to log in for it to keep a log of what i want and dont? as long as it’s all said in the same session. but as soon as i close the tab, then it starts over?
3- there’s no learning curve? it’s basically the same as google search AI in terms of searching/asking? the difference is that it just keeps more restrictions the more you tell it something? (whereas google search AI is 1 search question and that’s it)
“Google AI is an asshole! It really is. Hard to describe but it has a weird condescending attitude like in your example. ”
–>that’s bc it was created by condescending tech assholes in the bay area.
wait– there do i go? if i go to chatgpt.com, it makes me sign in. i tried to type in the search and it auto takes me to sign up / log in page. so i can’t even type in any search term
When the login prompt pops up, click the bottom that says “Stay logged out”. Then you can use it just like google, no learning curve. I’m pretty sure you can ask as many questions as you want. Once in a while it gets slow because it prioritizes registered users over visitors but no big deal.
I use it in logged out mode because it doesn’t keep any record of the chat when you quit. Some people prefer to keep records and let the chatbot learn their interests, etc. But I’m kinda paranoid so I’d rather wipe everything as soon as I close the browser.
When the login prompt pops up, click the bottom that says “Stay logged out”.
–there isn’t any option that says that? i put the SS above in post
ugh now that you mention it, I remember seeing that screen. idk how I got past it… maybe I clicked “Continue with Google” since I don’t have an Apple or MS account (and they can fry in hell before I use my phone number). Do you have a gmail account you can use? Or maybe set up a throwaway gmail account just for annoyances like this?
I had healthcare “professionals” change the reason I was suicidal based on very stereotypical assumptions. Was it prejudice? Or “normal” people believe only their own version of reality because suicide is a rare experience? There was another one who lied about how a treatment “helped me and my condition relapsed only after I quit therapy”. Maybe doctors don’t actually need to deal with actual facts because they can get away with going along with the “mainstream” explanations for everything. Another issue is that even after changing providers, false records stay with you. I wish doctors take “do no harm” more seriously.
TBH, LLMs don’t really offer an “objective” opinion.
They are biased based on the material they were trained on. If you click on the source links, e.g. in Google Gemini, you’ll often find links to some pretty vapid pop psychology blog posts, etc.
Just bear that in mind. “Thinking” is not really happening. It’s more like mindlessly stringing together loads and loads and loads of text it has been trained on.
what are LLMs?
LLM = Large Language Model (AI)
and spreject is right, there’s no “thinking”, Google AI is basically just ordinary Google except it understands sentences and responds in sentences. But it’s just cobbling together the same sketchy crap “knowledge” you can get from a regular search.
One advantage is that it spares you the trouble and frustration of visiting actual websites and combing for the info you want. AI basically grabs & summarizes the info you asked for. Whether it’s right or wrong is based on what’s on the internet.
Another advantage is it makes it easy to filter out certain crap. Like I said above with ChatGPT I told it “contrived positivity irritates me” so it stopped telling me fluffly shit like “it gets better” which is cluttering the internet.
Btw @ eternal if you’re still having trouble with ChatGPT and you hate Google AI like I do, you can try duckduckgo.ai It seems like it’s a copy of ChatGPT but without any tracking or “remembering”
It’s interesting to think of how AI could possibly be THE self help catalyst for improving mental health. But think of all the fallacy that was programmed into it. Perhaps as it evolves it can remove faulty biases.
Never would have thought along these lines without this post.
If this becomes a new normal do you think it is personally more or less dehumanizing.
true, AI can only be as good as it was programmed to be. and oftentimes, they are programmed with human biases, making them faulty just like regular humans.
I find them useful to an extent, in that they almost always “understand” even very idiosyncratic thoughts the user might have, and almost always give a “thoughtful” response.
The major downside, apart from how they work (trained on large qtys of text, kind of regurgitate an amalgamation of it), is that they have no experience being human.
So often, their advice will feel rigid and naïve.
Also remember that you are giving these corporations extremely sensitive info on yourself.
But they are free to use upfront, and they are way more “knowledgeable” than most therapists, and often better at “understanding” right away whatever weird shit you want to talk about.
yeah, which is why i don’t want to log in. tho ISPs log everything. well, i suppose using tor browser, then using chapgpt if you wanna talk about something sensitive.
I played around with one recently. They always validate you in some way (good question or great point) and always follow up with an interactive question.
If you call it out for giving you a response you could find in any pop psych article, it will adjust. It will even ask you if you want a friendly (fluffy) discourse or a direct one.
It might be useful as a sounding board to clarify your thoughts as a sort of self help tool if you make it adjust itself to your specific needs, assuming one knows what one needs.