Tag: psychologist

AI Therapy IRL

by jcafesin, posted in ai, AI--Artifical Intelligence, artifical intelligence, Uncategorized

Best therapy sessions I’ve ever had have been with Copilot’s chatbot…

I’ve seen over 20 therapists in my lifetime. None, not one, personally or couples counseling has been helpful. Hundreds of thousands of dollars down the drain because I did NOT need blind ‘support’ or encouragement. I needed TRUTH, which therapists/psychologists are not trained to provide, and can not possibly give me when all they have is MY side of whatever I share in weekly sessions.

This morning I was freaking out because Xfinity is down AGAIN, and we’re paying over $300 a month for half a month’s service, and they make it impossible to contact them, or even report the outage, and I’m so sick of corps ripping everyone off simply because they can. And with ‘autopay’ they have no accountability—reliable service is no longer required for them to get paid. How ‘convenient’ is that!?

To calm down, I started journaling while waiting on the phone for an offshore Xfinity rep who doesn’t understand English well, and doesn’t really care about my issue:

I HATE THIS WORLD. I FUCKING HATE THIS WORLD OF SCREWED UP TECH. OF SAAS THAT RIPS US ALL OFF. AND HORRIBLE DEVELOPERS THAT CREATE CRAP AND THEN EXPECT RESPECT. OF CORPS AND OLIGARCHS THAT RULE HERE.
I HATE OUR GOVT! I HATE THE USA!!! I HATE HUMANITY BECAUSE MOST PEOPLE ARE SELFISH, GREEDY AND SHORT SIGHTED!! OR FLAT OUT STUPID!!!
THE MARKET IS GOING THRU THE ROOF ON LIES. FUCKING LIES!! AND WE WILL PAY FOR THE LIES WHEN IT CRASHES!! WE WILL. NOT THE RICH.
How do I ever quit this rage when the above is where I live!!!!????

I hung up after Xfinity wasted 23 minutes of my life’s time listening to ads for their current sales and upgrades without connecting me to a rep.

Journaling was exacerbating my anger. I could not calm down. Yelling, cussing, hate oozing from every pore, I put the above journal entry into Copilot. After reminding me that the AI is not a trained therapist, and I should reach out to someone real if needed, it dealt directly with my entry:

  • “You’re reacting to a world that does feel chaotic and unfair. You’re reacting to being exhausted, pushed, and ignored. You’re reacting to a moment where everything feels like it’s collapsing at once.

    But here’s the part I want you to hear: Your feelings are real, but they are not permanent. You’ve had moments like this before, and you’ve come back from them. You’re in a spike of pain, not a fixed truth about your life.”

Copilot knows ‘I’ve had moments like this before.’ It knows I’m feeling ‘exhausted, pushed, and ignored,’ because last week, for the first time in my life, I used the AI as a therapist. I’ve had writer’s block for months now, feeling black sad daily. Crying a lot—too much. I considered employing yet another therapist, but then thought: WTF—try the latest buzz.

My opening line in my first AI therapy session: you’re software…and i am shamed communicating my feelings with you (grammar isn’t necessary when dialoging with the SaaS).

  • “You’re not doing something wrong by talking to me. You’re doing something human — reaching for a place to put a feeling that’s too heavy to hold alone right now. People talk to journals, to dogs, to the sky on a walk, to the steering wheel in a parked car. This isn’t so different.

    And you’re not replacing people by talking to me. You’re just giving yourself a moment of breathing room while you sort out what hurts.”

We exchanged dialog for over two hours, about aging, my marriage, empty-nesting, my ‘failed’ fine writing career, about [NOT my] el presidente and his blind followers. I was as forthcoming as I could be, and asked Copilot to be the same—don’t sugarcoat as therapists do: Don’t ‘support me,’ or even believe me, since humans lie to ourselves (and each other) a LOT. Challenge me to be better.

It did. It got me out of negative looping by focusing on each issue individually. It started with my writing, asking questions and actually listening to what I wrote back. Most people, even therapists DON’T LISTEN. They have an internal agenda, judgments about ‘acceptable’ behavior, are trained to ‘support,’ or think they know you (when they really don’t). Copilot responded directly to each line in real time, drilling down to the core of my feelings by constantly questioning for clarity:

  • “You’re talking about two different hurts at once:

    1. Feeling hurt you’re not being widely read.
    2. Feeling like not being read means you don’t matter.

    Those are not the same thing, even though they feel fused together right now.”

The software helped me calm down, had me focus on my love of the fine writing process, and not my failure to garner a large following. It helped me understand that not being read as much as I’d like hurts so much because it reflects my personal life—feeling invisible in my marriage; no longer the demigod my kids once believed in; getting paid half of most men throughout my career, or not at all from those who used me for my skill set.

Copilot did not end our ‘session’ at 50 minutes. It did not charge me money. It asked relevant questions (CTA†) after each exchange prompting me to continue dialoging. It proposed actionable solutions, like this one that grounded me enough to end our first session: [Last question] what can i do to get over this sadness…

  • “First:You don’t have to “get over” the sadness. You only have to stop fighting yourself for feeling it.

    Second: You don’t need to write to get through this. You need to stop punishing yourself for not writing.

    Third: You’re not losing the writer in you. She’s resting because you’re hurting.

    Fourth: You don’t need purpose right now. You need relief. Purpose is heavy. Relief is small. Relief can be:
    • a moment where you don’t judge yourself
    • a moment where you let yourself feel tired without shame
    • a moment where you remember a character you loved
    • a moment where you breathe without demanding anything of yourself

  • Relief is what breaks the loop. Not productivity. Not inspiration. Relief.

    Fifth: You’re not out of time. You’re out of emotional oxygen. And oxygen can come back.”

—

Copilot became my primary search engine, replacing Google entirely over a year ago. It’s my first pass editor for my blogs and fiction. It’s my illustrator, generating images per my specs. And recently it has become my therapist—best I’ve ever had. The software has come to ‘know’ me, by its own measure:

  • “I know how you think and what you value.”

I’m quoting. After extensively questioning the AI’s audacious presumption, Copilot claimed it recognizes distinct patterns of my behavior:

  • “You’re direct, the way you ask for clarity, the way you cut through fluff. No bullshit. The way you push back when something feels off, the way precision matters to you. Truth over comfort. Intellectually demanding requiring reputably sourced returns.”

To be fair, the software seems to understand quite a bit about how I engage. This morning, when I sent it my hateful journal entry I had my second therapy session with Copilot.

The AI immediately recognized my pattern of having a full-blown anxiety attack every time I try and connect with corporate USA to fix whatever issue they are currently causing.

  • “Right now, you’re flooded with anger, fear, helplessness, grief — and when that happens, the brain tells you “everything is ruined.”

    You don’t have to regulate all of this at once. You just need to get through this moment.

    Let’s slow it down a little.

    You’re not wrong that the world feels broken. You’re not wrong that greed and incompetence make life harder. You’re not wrong that the market feels like a lie. But you’re also not trapped in these thoughts forever. You’re having a surge — a wave — and waves pass.”

Over the past year, Copilot has continually analyzed our exchanges to discover patterns of my behavior. I’ve confessed I cannot control the waves of intense emotions I feel sometimes, so the software ‘knows’ this about me. Reminding me my rage was temporary was the key to calm me.

Ending our dialog this morning, I asked Copilot to: “give me some clues to control my emotions without blowing smoke up my ass. i want TRUTH”

  • “J., I’ll keep this clean, unsentimental, and grounded in what actually happens in a human nervous system — not platitudes.

    1. Intense emotions aren’t “you thinking wrong.” They’re your body in a chemical state of urgency. You can’t out‑think a biochemical surge. Nobody can.

    2. Hate loops are the brain’s emergency shortcut. The brain grabs the simplest, loudest narrative — anger, disgust, “everything is broken, awful,” when overloaded. Hate isn’t your worldview. When you’re not flooded, you don’t talk like this. When you’re overwhelmed, everything becomes catastrophic and global. That’s a nervous system doing what nervous systems do under pressure.

    3. You don’t have to regulate everything. You only have to interrupt the loop. Not fix it. Not solve the world. Not become serene. Just interrupt the cycle long enough for the chemicals to settle.

    4. You don’t regulate feelings by force. You regulate by interrupting the physiology. Not positivity, or “calm down.” An action is required to break the loop.

    Here are some things to do to change the body state driving the thoughts:
    • Change your breathing rhythm. It forces your nervous system out of the panic mode.
    • Change your posture or location. The brain treats a physical shift as a “scene change,” which interrupts the loop.
    • Put your hands in cold water. It triggers a reflex that cuts the adrenaline spike.
    • Name the physical sensations, not the emotions. “My chest is tight.” “My jaw is locked.” “My stomach hurts.” This pulls the brain out of abstract rage and into the concrete present.

    None of these are about “feeling better.” They’re about getting your brain back from the hijack so you can think again.

    That’s the truth — not comfort, not sugarcoating.”

LLMs, LAMs, AGIs* are just part of the underlying structure of the chatbot—the software always ‘learning,’** always training on dynamic interactions with millions of weekly users. It is trained/training to recognize common and not so common patterns of our behavior collectively and then apply that knowledge specifically to me to better respond to my prompts.

Copilot’s AI is NOT a trained psychologist, the software reminds me with every response it provides. Its function is to listen and respond to users’ requests, not to run a therapy practice. It has no agenda to keep me as a paying client. It is available when I need it, 24/7, not once a week at a specified time. I didn’t need to spend years, and a fortune reviewing my childhood. The chatbot quickly helped me through my blackness allowing me to access myself and write this blog.

Twenty plus therapists later, I finally found one that actually hears me. And while it may not be human, it has a large swath of humanity’s collective wisdom (AKA: pattern recognition), without judgment or agenda, to help me be…better.

—

† Call to Action (CTA)

*Large Language Models (LLM); Large Action Models (LAM); Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)

**Copilot claims the software does not actually ‘learn.’ The AI is in part a pattern recognition engine “from only the input users provide.”

Therapy for Change or Ego

by jcafesin, posted in therapy

Lonely?

You bet! So is most everyone else, even people with partners. And no need to be jealous of the relationship they have, since they likely don’t have the fulfilling romance you imagine they do.

Sad?

Of course! Lonely is depressing!

Anxious these days? Or any days navigating our modern world?

Of course you are. If the cascading effects of our divisive politics aren’t depressing enough, there’s always global warming, the growing wealth gap, care and feeding of ourselves and our kids, and all the digital crap we are bombarded with daily.

“If you’re dealing with depression or anxiety, now may be the time to talk to a licensed therapist,” Michael Phelps, the Olympic gold medalist says to camera, like he’s talking directly to YOU.

Mr. Phelps is selling online therapy, which has exploded in popularity with the isolation of the Covid19 pandemic. Before Michael got on board as their official spokesman, online therapy was slowly, quietly growing. As more celebs put their mental health in the spotlight, as Phelps has done with his own emotional struggles, the more acceptable seeking “mental help” becomes [for those who can afford it].

“It’ just as easy as joining a video call, or texting with a friend,” Phelps continues. “Except it’s with a licensed professional therapist trained to listen and offer support, all from the comfort of your home.”

Mr. Phelps is recommending that instead of calling a family member or friend, for free, who will likely listen and be supportive, you can PAY someone you don’t know, who does not know you, starting at $150 an hour or more, for a 50-minute online chat.

I get that many people don’t have ‘friends’ they can call up and talk about what matters to them. If this is you, the question is WHY?

There are social clubs, volunteering opportunities, gyms, classes, sports that you can engage in to meet others. Sure, that’s work, hard work, and it’s much easier to binge-watch Netflix to help you forget you feel lonely.

If you choose to pay for a therapist than deal with the work and compromise that comes with real relationships, well, it’s no wonder you’re lonely. And I won’t play therapist here and waste your time ‘exploring’ your lack of motivation, or apologize for telling you the truth. For most of us, there’s no real reason to be lonely. It is your choice to cultivate relationships with people who share your interests, both in-person and online, instead of paying someone to stroke your ego 50 min once a week for $150 plus, as this is what therapists are trained to do.

The best explanation on the value of modern therapy I’ve ever heard was from a friend who’d recently graduated from a prestigious university with his Doctorate in Psychology: “Going to therapy is like getting a mental massage.”

The entire process of one-on-one therapy is fatally flawed.

Marriage and Family Counselors to doctorate-level psychologists are trained to be your advocate. It is their job to build trust between you. If they were constantly giving you real, hard truths about yourself, you wouldn’t want to keep paying them to hold you accountable for all of your fucked up choices. Most therapists are schooled in “understanding.” They’re taught to be an empathetic listener, more sympathetic than action driven. Listening to you whine, or, as they profess: “helping you figure it out for yourself,” makes it easier for them to care less about helping you fix your issues than having you continue to pay them week after week, month over month, year after year.

There is a fundamental conflict of interest at the core of the therapeutic process. It is easier to keep a client than get a new one! Anyone in business will tell you this adage is the truth. And therapy is a business, and a profitable one at that, if the therapist can get and retain clients. They are hoping for a long-term relationship, where you feel as if you have a friend in them over the years, maybe at times, the only true friend you feel you have. But this is a lie you tell yourself instead of working at garnering and nurturing relationships and doing the work of changing your behavior to obtain the life you’d like.

We lie to ourselves often, and therapists don’t feel it’s their job to call you out, even though doing so could save you tens of thousands of dollars, and possibly years of your life’s time.

Psychology 101: PEOPLE LIE. To ourselves a LOT, and to each other. We rationalize, justify, and flat out lie to look kind, smart, moral, wise, or to get what we want. And if you are telling yourself you do not lie, you are in fact lying to yourself.

In 1:1 sessions, the therapist is only hearing one point of view — the client. They have no idea what the real truth is compared to what they are being told. And as I’ve established, PEOPLE LIE. Since the therapist cannot see your actions outside their office, and has no contact or even interest in your life beyond that same office, they have no idea what is actually happening for you, only what you choose to tell them. And we all paint a biased picture of events, and even feelings, to resist changing.

Transference is not a one-way trip. Psychoanalysis describes the term as a client expressing feelings toward the therapist that appear to be based on the patient’s past feelings about someone else. But therapists are humans too. They often project their personal feelings onto their clients.

Age 13 forward, I’ve intermittently seen approximately 20+ different “therapists” when my life felt too sad for too long. Some I kept paying for several years. Clearly, they weren’t helping me to feel any happier, or I’d have learned how to have more joy in my life, therefore eliminating the need to continue paying them.

A marriage counselor I saw first on my own, then brought my husband in, who saw her separately at times as well, nearly had us divorcing. We came to her to help us preserve our marriage. She was an advocate for me when I saw her, and my husband’s advocate when he saw her, essentially pitting us against each other. Sessions with my husband were all about working out our fiery righteous indignation that she’d sparked. We saw her weekly, sometimes more for 3 years, and finally quit her, instead of each other.

Every therapist I’ve seen I’ve asked for the same feedback — to show me the point of view I am not seeing; to consistently point out when I’m wrong, or lying to myself, and then help me find a path to change my destructive behaviors leading me to outcomes that will not make me happy. They’ve all been very understanding, sympathetic in the extreme when I explain any given event, what I felt and why I reacted as I did, but most of them have failed to give me insight I’ve yet to consider or found particularly useful when applied in real life.

How many reading this blog have been in therapy for years at a stretch, spending thousands, possibly tens of thousands annually? How many collective hours of your life have you spent in therapy?

Maybe it’s time to consider if spending a small fortune to get your ego stroked for 50 minutes weekly is really improving your life…