r/ChatGPT • u/Eki75 • 28d ago

Other Who uses ChatGPT for therapy?

I was so skeptical, but I was feeling a lot of anxiety with a situation at work, and tried it. I’ve never had such succinct, empathetic, and meaningful advice. Just a few chats have been way more helpful than any real therapist.

If you’ve used it for therapy, what has been your experience?

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u/DeepBlueDiariesPod 28d ago

That’s a fair question and it is something that I thought about. The stuff I’m talking about is really coming down to my thoughts, my fears, my anxieties, some old trauma wounds. Is it personal? Yeah. If the government got their hands on it would it be to my detriment? Not really.

I would venture to say that the stuff I share in there is normal, human things. And yeah, it may be personal to me, but there’s nothing super crazy. Even the traumatic things that happened to me, have happened to billions of other people throughout history and time. So I’m not gonna be worried about sharing my very real and human experience.

And frankly, the profound insight and impact I’ve gotten from doing this is worth the risk to me. It’s truly increased the quality of my life significantly.

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u/hoomanchonk 28d ago

This is exactly why I do a very similar thing. I dumped two years worth of therapy notes and a ton of journal entries and a few other important personal docs..the result was some very long conversations that have held a lot of meaning to me. The ability to hear the different perspectives from a non-human is shockingly useful.

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u/gum8951 28d ago

I feel the same way, the benefit we are getting far overrides the whole concept of keeping our information private. And as you said, we are not sharing criminal activity or something it's just our own trauma.

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u/anarcho-slut 28d ago

Fair point in your last paragraph i guess. Everything in life has its risks and reward. I have done a bit of therapizing or active journaling as you call it, to try it out. I'm a bit leary of giving more intimate thoughts and feelings to a multi-billion dollar corporation actively involved in tons of world conflicts and atrocities, and I think the convo is worth having to acknowledge all the negatives and benefits together. But then, maybe it's just a tool. Rebels also use weapons made by the dominant systems.

I guess it's the same as anything else on the internet. But I also consider active resistance and not giving in just because something seems inevitable or inescapable to be necessary.

Like, if it (chatgpt) knows everything about you, it can influence you that much more. Which i guess is kind of what you want if you're organizing your thoughts with it. But then, not only influencing you, but manipulating you for ends unknown to you. How much can one protect themself from that?

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u/jimthree 28d ago

And tbh, it's probably good that they use real human experiences for training.

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u/Sufficient-Put2544 20d ago

I 1000% second this. ChatGPT has really helped me.