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Therapy is inherently opinionated. I can't see an LLM offering any deep insights because deep insights are sharp and cutting. LLMs are soft.
But, They are good for Reddit tier sanity checks. "My parents used to beat me within an inch of my life. Is that abuse?"; Yeah, an LLM will help with that. But so will Reddit. LLMs can be especially useful here if it is too embarrassing to post even as an Anon.
Overall, It serves as a great 'intake specialist' and friend. Not so much therapist. Great resouce for intial direction and to riff off. Emotional or otherwise.
I wouldnt trust it past that point.
Does regular therapy actually do more than that? Most of the value (unless you’re literally diagnosed with a real mental disorder) is in hearing yourself talk about the problem. It’s probably no better or worse than talking to a friend or clergy or a parent. Even journaling generally helps to get things off your chest and often just putting down on paper the stuff that happened or that’s in your head can give you insight.
Therapy is probably worse than talking to a parent/pastor/friend, because therapists are paid strangers who’ve been trained to see every problem primarily in terms of feelings.
They also tend to always say that everything will be ok; turns out everything did not turn out ok. I could have bought an awesome drone for the money I spent getting lied to and it would have brought me more happiness long-term.
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