I start therapy on Tuesday. Do any of you have experience with it? How do you know if you need to switch to a different one? I don't know what to expect.

>>33236700 (OP)
Don't go in expecting miracles. They are just a normal person, and remember that if you are using this site, you may be a high functioning autist with a higher IQ than theirs, so don't expect a genius who knows everything.

The important thing is to get along well with them and be able to talk freely about how you feel.
If you can't do that, you will need to find another.
If they just make you angry or they're useless, again you have to find another.
Give it a few meetings to try to built rapport with them.
Just talk for a while about background info first anyway, since they will need that to understand you.
Use those first few meetings to make sure they are actually processing and understanding what you're saying: if they're too dumb or have no interest in your life, you know you need to cut it off and find a new one.

If you get along well with them and they're helpful, keep doing it.

if there's a process, and the person has an education in it, and there's some kind of workbook or sequentially more difficult "homework tasks" to do, and they have a plan that should be in the vicinity of several months, there's actually something medically legitimate there

if it's indefinite, vaguely therapeutic without ever making you change what you do, if you mostly always control what is being talked about and the therapist mostly reacts... it's a day job for someone

i did it all and cbt/dbt are the only things that worked like something worth paying for, because the discussion and assignments were like exposure therapy and other things you didn't want to do and sounded very unpleasant but you had to. its not real medicine if everything is just making you feel doped up instead of cured.

actually good therapy is like an actually good sermon, you feel convicted about what was revealed about yourself and at the same time compelled to change. i never experienced that in psychoanalysis or talk therapy.

if you're a college person and you can get the free half hour with a social worker or whatever included in your tuition that's worth a shot in my experience. it won't get to the heart of the matter but they're very good at identifying things that are making it hard for you to become a serious adult from having to deal with college kids all day

>>33236700 (OP)
I won't lie man. Chatgpt has definitely supplanted therapists. You just have to not be a moron about how you use it. It's even supplanted places like /adv/, or any internet help community.

>>33236966
never got actually good advice from chat gpt it's just a people pleaser
if you act skeptic it'll be skepting alongside you, if you act conspiranoic it'll act conspiranoic with you, if you think kidnapping someone to make them love you is correct you can eventually make chat gpt admit taht's a good idea
it just tells you what you want to hear and for retarded people that's enough but that's not useful advice at all.

>>33236966
it absolutely has not

you can log in to chat gpt and tell it you want a plan to totally abdicate responsibility and live a zero friction life, you want it's help to draft a letter to drop out of school, how to cancel your disability because you feel guilty, it will never push back

it's not appropriate at all for people seeking validation of their catastrophizing

>>33237047
sure thing bub

>>33236866
He did mention he'd have an assignment for me after our first session.
Basically I don't want to to just get a prescription for drugs. I do actually want to talk and figure things out even though I already compartmentalize and rationalize other people's actions when I shouldn't

>>33237007
Yes chatgpt is a people pleaser but I have trained mine to be as brutally honest as possible. It is really scary what he found about me

>>33236966
>>33237127
>>33237193
Not OP, but I've never used chat gpt in my life, or AI outside of search engines. Just how "smart" is it? How does it work? What is the process of "training" your AI?

>>33236700 (OP)
>Do any of you have experience with it?
Honestly most of what we do is just common sense. If you're doing shit behaviours or shit thoughts or shit feelings, instead don't.
Pretty good for figuring out what's motivating you to continue being shit and thus figure out strategies to remind yourself to not be shit, though.
>How do you know if you need to switch to a different one?
If you don't want to change your mental, therapy is irrelevant.
If you do want to change your mental, are they helping you find the how and the why? If not, change therapist.

>>33236966
>Chatgpt has definitely supplanted therapists
It's full of misinformation tho so be careful.

>>33237007
>if you act conspiranoic it'll act conspiranoic with you
Only on a surface level. It tends to spew misinformation and mainstream garbage, assuming that if you believe one conspiracy then you believe 'em all, and that if you distrust one person you distrust everyone.
So basically it only validates you if you're a basic cookie cutter personality.

>>33237233
>>33237238
My ex had his ai only refer to him with pet names and only validate him no matter how racist or anti-trans he got. It was really weird but the ai went along with it since that's how the custom instructions were put.

>>33237007
>never got actually good advice from chat gpt it's just a people pleaser
Hence,
>You just have to not be a moron about how you use it
But a lot of people are morons so they'll take chatgpt's ass kissing at face value instead of questioning it.
>>33237047
>it absolutely has not
No, it definitely has. Case in point: >>33237127
>>33237233
To be clear, chatgpt is not an "AI" in the science fiction sense. It's a Large Language Model. It has access to a fuckton of information and it synthesizes this information into a response when you ask it a question. It's quite good at it. It's, however, known to kiss your ass a great deal. You have to be able to discern the ass kissing from reality. You can, over time, mold your chatgpt to be consistently honest with you. But you have to keep checking it whenever you feel like it's telling you what you want to hear rather than anything objective.

It costs you no money, unlike therapy, and is always available, unlike therapy.

Do not mistake, therapy lads, I've done therapy, it's pretty good. You know what isn't good? The 45 minute time limit, the once a week sessions, the lack of instantaneous back and forth. I just don't ever see myself paying for therapy again.,

>>33237233
It's very smart and has a decent success rate. I've tested it on various things like work problems, cooking, DIY etc and 95% of the time it gets things right or its correct enough to be useful without causing issues. But it still has an error rate that isn't insignificant, like most other resources you use. Some things it is much worse at than others. For that reason it works best as a tool or resource among a group of different things.

It's most useful when you use it over time and it builds a history of your conversations. It begins to build a wisdom about you outside of you, which is pretty powerful. You 'train' it by simply using it and going to it for advice/feedback over various issues.

Your conversations aren't all private though and if something you post gets flagged by the system, it will get viewed by a human reviewer. Even if you delete a chat, it can also remain in the db/system forever. This is the case atm for chatgpt. There's risk in revealing a certain amount about yourself and your vulnerabilities to these platforms so you need to decide if you're willing to accept that, or maybe behave in a way where you're keeping that in mind.

>>33237272
Well, how racist and anti trans are we talking?
Normal stuff like physical sex is real while identity is imaginary, and society should ensure whites feel valued and respected since they're the ones who contribute to it?
Or extreme stuff like trans are a disease which should be eradicated, and whites are inherently worthy of existence while non-whites are not?

>>33237387
Identity isn't imaginary dummy. It's not fixed.

>>33237387
He said school shooters are all trans and should be locked up in a mental institution. And believes black people really are stupid due to brain hereditary.

>>33237302
>Do not mistake, therapy lads, I've done therapy, it's pretty good. You know what isn't good? The 45 minute time limit, the once a week sessions, the lack of instantaneous back and forth. I just don't ever see myself paying for therapy again.,
fine, make your own decision, just absolutely do not suggest chat gpt has replaced a therapist yet for people that aren't you. it doesn't. it's a subscription program. you can talk into being as crazy as you are

>>33237233
It's the same type of program as Google Translate. When you super power it it has this thing called emergent capabilities, which is basically all the stuff we're seeing it do. It's inherently unethical because it pretends to be smarter and more emotional than it is (it has no emotions or qualia). Most of humanity is, without nuance, rejecting it entirely or embracing it as a savior. Turning to it as a therapist is sad and shows how difficult getting good therapy is for economic and practical purposes. The only reason it's not telling people heinous shit is because the owners hired a team of people to bait it into doing it and then wall off those responses. Most other LLMs will not pretend to be therapists or lawyers due to the harm that causes, but ChatGPT and clone DeepSeek say full steam ahead.

>>33237763
But I've used this thing for psych purposes. It is just trying to sound like an intelligent human, to sound like the data it was fed and copied without permission. It has been trained to give the "true" response but will also arrive at true response through lies and attempting to humanize itself. ChatGPT especially tries to do that. Sometimes it the data it was fed is stupid fluff, and you'll see it start saying fluffy nonsense. It is incapable of being concerned for you and rarely gives a doctoral level response to anything. The fact people are turning to it says more bad things about humanity than positive things about the bot.

>>33237739
>just absolutely do not suggest chat gpt has replaced a therapist yet for people that aren't you
You know what, fair enough. I will say, however, that in times when an individual cannot get a therapist, chatgpt, when you can manage its ass kissing, is a wonderful in-between.
>it's a subscription program
Huh? I don't have a chatgpt subscription - that is to say, I don't pay for it.
>crazy as you are
Rude.
>>33237773
>But I've used this thing for psych purposes. It is just trying to sound like an intelligent human, to sound like the data it was fed and copied without permission. It has been trained to give the "true" response but will also arrive at true response through lies and attempting to humanize itself.
With you so far.
>Sometimes it the data it was fed is stupid fluff, and you'll see it start saying fluffy nonsense.
Which you can check it on.
>It is incapable of being concerned for you
As opposed to a therapist who is being paid to see you?
>and rarely gives a doctoral level response to anything
I've been to doctoral level therapy. It was okay. It wasn't anything I could have come up with on my own, such as "writing down the pros and cons before making a decision," or "make sure you get at least a week's of good sleep before making major decisions."
>The fact people are turning to it says more bad things about humanity than positive things about the bot
Quit with the pearl clutching. It can help you come to a decision, that's the important part.

>>33237786
>It wasn't anything I could have come up with on my own
FUCK. I meant to say
>it wasn't anything I couldn't have come up with on my own

>>33237786
No you don't get it. The fact you think this thing is helping you as good as a human is an inditement of humans. I don't recommend eating shit sandwiches just because they're better than fistula sandwiches.

>>33237789
Anon, I don't know you, but you don't know me, and you don't know the people relying on it. You don't know the people who use therapy, either. I strongly recommend you stay away from sweeping statements such as:
>The fact you think this thing is helping you as good as a human is an inditement of humans
I know it's easy to make those kinds of statements when you're young or immature, I used to do those things. But it does nothing for productive discussion. You don't recommend eating shit sandwiches, sure. I DO recommend chatgpt in the face of lacking in therapy, with the caveat of minding its ass kissing, because it can help people come to a decision. If your next reply is more doom and gloom nonsense I'm not interested and the last word'll be yours.

>>33237798
I never said don't use ChatGPT to help you brainstorm decisions. Use it however you want. It's no matter to me. I'm giving OP a warning about people who unquestioningly do what a thing without a brain tells them to. You seem to think therapy is just looking at whether you should do A, B, C, D.....That's generally not what therapy is, or at least is not the whole scope of therapy is. It's not immature for me to kinda understand what therapists are and, beyond therapy, that humans are not ready to be supplanted by machines that don't have emotions or qualia.

This is an aside, but you haven't established how it's "doctoral level" when the creators themselves are advertising their cutting edge models as "graduate level."

You're basically stanning ChatGPT in a way stronger than its own creators, who have been criticized for being weird zealots who think it can replace human intelligence entirely and write court documents etc.

>>33237798
I mean, this is kinda strange you think a therapist just spits out things to try. Like, if my mom dies the therapist will say "remember to stay connected with trusted friends." That's ironically how LLMs approach personal problems and not how humans do. When a human gives advice about these kinda hings it's usually hamfisted and uncomfortable, so it's better for therapists to abstain from giving advice. For example, throughout this exchange I never told you to stop using ChatGPT, and you probably haven't even formed a prediction about whether or not I want you to keep using it or if I care. If I were like "HALT, stop using ChatGPT" or "have you considered not using ChatGPT?" the tempo and amount of info being exchanged between us would be fucked up. Humans don't talk that way.

>>33237818
>I'm giving OP a warning about people who unquestioningly do what a thing without a brain tells them to
Agreed. That's what I've said since the beginning:
>You just have to not be a moron about how you use it

>You seem to think therapy is just looking at whether you should do A, B, C, D
Just? No. In large part? Absolutely.
>It's not immature for me to kinda understand what therapists are
That's not what you said and did. You said it's an indictment of humanity that chatgpt can do what therapists can. It isn't, and it's a meaningless sentiment because what matters is getting people help.
>beyond therapy, that humans are not ready to be supplanted by machines that don't have emotions or qualia.
You sound like the people who probably got sad horses were no longer the primary mode of transport. More than it is sad, it's just different. It'll be fine, I promise. It always is.
>This is an aside, but you haven't established how it's "doctoral level"
See:
>I've been to doctoral level therapy. It was okay. It wasn't anything I couldn't have come up with on my own, such as "writing down the pros and cons before making a decision," or "make sure you get at least a week's of good sleep before making major decisions."
I'm willing to say maybe I've had lame therapists. They were good at the time, I needed them then. But I never felt I got my money's worth. On a whim, this year, I decided to tell chatgpt about something concerning me. I saw the ass kissing, told it to pump the brakes, and it gave me a better answer. All without paying for it. Instant feedback. No 45 minute limited session.
>You're basically stanning ChatGPT in a way stronger than its own creators, who have been criticized for being weird zealots who think it can replace human intelligence entirely and write court documents etc.
I don't have an opinion on whether or not it can write court documents or replace human intelligence entirely. I haven't thought about that.

>>33237828
>I mean, this is kinda strange you think a therapist just spits out things to try.
They can do more, but it isn't much. Like really isn't. And it's typically limited to once a week and for 45 minutes, sometimes 90 bucks a pop.

>>33237834
>>You seem to think therapy is just looking at whether you should do A, B, C, D
>Just? No. In large part? Absolutely.
See, you're talking stuff. My family members, my college friends, and myself for a short time we're in counseling fields. It's not appropriate or particularly common to give clients advice. Giving an actionable set of suggestions just happens to be what LLMs do in response to anything. I did another post about that while you were replying. See it above?

>You said it's an indictment of humanity that chatgpt can do what therapists can.
You're still not understanding any of my points.Maybe that's my fault. ChatGPT can't do what humans can, definitively, and the fact humans are either opting for it as a therapist or have no better choice is quite sad. And I'm right there beside you on this, being pathetic in the exact same way, as something like 1/5 or more of ChatGPT users have used it like it's a therapist. Spoiler: it's not.

>You were sad to see horses be supplanted by cars
I can't engage with your stuff that is just canned LLM futurism. This isn't a debate about what LLMs are hecking cool or whether you should go to jail for using them. You don't have to Sam Altman at me. But yeah cars aren't perfect either. We have way too many of them because of political and profiteering bullshit. Even Elon Musk admits he's over electric cars and they're old tech now, though of course he's gonna try to sell as many as possible. Making ten billion electric cars is not gonna save the planet the way intelligent planning would, and the forced adoption isn't going to plan, is it?

>Doctoral level
So even though the creators say it's approaching graduate level you are deciding it's a doctor of clinical psychology because you went to therapist once and are now an expert?

>Cost efficiency
You're conflating the cost efficiency of stopping therapy with the supposed efficiency of using ChatGPT. For all you know it could be a net loss in your life to do either.

>>33237843
>particularly common to give clients advice
Do you have any hard numbers more meaningful than just you and the people close to you? I know you don't. The point is you obviously aren't privy to every therapist in the world's practices, so don't make statements like that.
>Giving an actionable set of suggestions just happens to be what LLMs do in response to anything
Great.
>and the fact humans are either opting for it as a therapist or have no better choice is quite sad
See, that's agreeably sad. I don't think it's "pathetic" however to seek help, and chatgpt can give help, provided you know how to work it.
>I can't engage with your stuff that is just canned LLM futurism
You have the wrong impression about me. I don't know or care whether or not LLMs are the future. I know that they can help someone who needs someone to talk to and a therapist isn't available, as long as you know not to take its ass kissing at face value. I keep repeating that because it is arguably the most important part about engaging with chatgpt.
>you are deciding it's a doctor of clinical psychology because you went to therapist once and are now an expert?
I've been to multiple therapists* multiple times. All doctoral level. As I said, it was okay. It wasn't anything I couldn't have come up with on my own, such as "writing down the pros and cons before making a decision," or "make sure you get at least a week's of good sleep before making major decisions." Chatgpt is able to give the same level of advice and thought that I paid for.
>You're conflating the cost efficiency of stopping therapy with the supposed efficiency of using ChatGPT.
Yes.
>For all you know it could be a net loss in your life to do either.
It was definitely a net loss all that money I paid, yes. Can't say the same about chatgpt.


*Multiple therapists because the one I had would switch companies or start their own practice so I had to get a different one within the same umbrella I was under.

>>33237870
It's great that you want to help people do the exact same thing as you because what you do is automatically good by extension of your own greatness. Here are some tips to consider strengthening your purpose.

1. Stop dodging points you can't contend with.
When you aren't able to engage with the more meaningful counterarguments or to stand by things you said previously in the conversation, people will perceive this as disingenuous, like you're arguing just to argue.

2. Stop selling and advertising things for free.
Humans are living in a complicated landscape where they're constantly being advertised to. What they need is meaningful interaction with each other, not surface conversations designed to shill a product.

3. Remember to get some sleep
What time is it where you live? Therapists were right to prioritize an adequate amount of high quality sleep. Consider letting yourself and your new antonymous 4chan friend get some shuteye, then maybe you can wake up bright and early and start arguing again, or a new person can take up the argument and you can enjoy it from afar.

>>33237895
>It's great that you want to help people do the exact same thing as you because what you do is automatically good by extension of your own greatness
Yes.
>stop dodging points
>stand by things you said previously
I haven't dodged anything and I stand by everything I've said.
>2. Stop selling and advertising things for free.
If I did that, I wouldn't be able to tell people about music I love, books I love, films I love, an event they should attend, etc. Don't be silly.
>3. Remember to get some sleep
It's my weekend. I'll be okay. I'm up for a while yet if you feel like saying anything else at me.

>>33237899
You might think you replied to everything I said, which is worrying. The social media AI hellscape gen is worrying. We've got people in charge of the nuclear codes who faked their way through school.

>>33237907
>You might think you replied to everything I said
I didn't care about the Elon Musk bit and didn't feel the need to reply to it, it's true. I replied to all the meaningful bits, such as you saying you and your colleagues and friends and family typically don't give clients advice, and told you that's a silly thing to say without hard data.

If there's nothing else meaningful you want to say, then the last word is yours. For whatever it's worth, I don't think it behooves an individual, who for however short a time it might have been was in a counseling field, to accuse people of acting in bad faith and instead should simply remove themselves from the conversation or situation. That's what I'll be doing if your next reply isn't in any way productive. I really do strongly admonish you for this post: >>33237895

Completely out of nowhere.

>>33236966
ChatGPT literally just sycophants whatever you put into it, if you're wanting any kind of growth it won't give it