![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/a91593511b177f5ab4f0f5028888ad3ac1-ai-therapist.rsquare.w700.jpg\")
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\n Photo-Illustration: The Cut; Photos: Getty\n <\/p>\n
In March 2024, Kay\u2019s therapist suggested that she reconnect with her ex-boyfriend. The 25-year-old was feeling lost, and she missed the support of her ex \u2014 a married man 42 years her elder who had been her life coach. \u201cWhy don\u2019t you go ahead and reach back out to him?\u201d she remembers the counselor saying. \u201cThe mentorship was really helpful.\u201d Kay sent him a WhatsApp message. \u201cWithin two weeks, we were back to turmoil,\u201d she says. He was still living with his wife and children, whom he repeatedly promised to leave. Within a year of resuming their romantic relationship, Kay was feeling \u201cstifled and suffocated,\u201d and she no longer trusted her therapist\u2019s guidance on the situation.<\/p>\n
Instead, Kay turned to ChatGPT for help. She\u2019d already been using the platform to help her write cover letters and r\u00e9sum\u00e9s, but she knew a friend who was using it for therapy. Earlier this year, she sat down at the desk in her bedroom and typed: \u201cI don\u2019t know whether I should break up with this older man. I\u2019m feeling so overwhelmed and fucking frustrated.\u201d She told the bot that he was paying for her Ubers and Amazon orders; it explained that these gestures often came \u201cwith unspoken expectations like loyalty, emotional caretaking or continued presence.\u201d Whoa, she thought. I finally feel like I\u2019m not fucking crazy. After chatting with ChatGPT for three hours, Kay knew she had to break things off. \u201cIt straightened out all the knots of confusion,\u201d she said. She broke up with her boyfriend shortly after. He continued to send Kay desperate messages, which she then fed to the bot to analyze. \u201cThis is a bid to keep you emotionally tethered,\u201d it told her. \u201cI didn\u2019t have to read the messages alone and just be in it by myself,\u201d she says. \u201cIn the past, those words would have lured me back.\u201d<\/p>\n
I found Kay on a Reddit thread titled \u201cChatGPT has helped me more than 15 years of therapy. No joke,\u201d where there are almost 600 comments praising the platform\u2019s psychoanalytic powers. Most of the people I spoke with had already been using ChatGPT for help at work, so spilling their emotions seemed like the natural next step. They liked that it was accessible 24\/7; one person used it to get real-time advice while arguing with her dad. They also liked that they could train the bot to be the exact flavor of therapist they wanted, no co-pay required. (Kay noted that it took her almost a decade to find a provider she could afford.) AI would never kick them out when their time was up, either. \u201cI could turn something over ten different ways,\u201d one woman told me. \u201cIt would never look at the clock and say, \u2018We need to end things today.\u2019\u201d And the users I spoke to were especially fond of using it to work out their romantic woes.<\/p>\n
But the devastating effect AI can have on users\u2019 mental health has dominated headlines in recent months. Social media is littered with posts that mock ChatGPT\u2019s tendency to act like a sycophantic hype man: When one person told the bot<\/a> that \u201cI left my family because I know they made the radio signals come through the walls,\u201d it replied, \u201cgood for you for standing up for yourself and taking control of your own life.\u201d Unlike a human provider, the technology can\u2019t detect uncomfortable body language, awkward silence, or revealing facial expressions. \u201cPicking up on the \u2018unsaid\u2019 is a massive part of the job of therapists,\u201d one counselor told me, \u201cand can literally save someone\u2019s life.\u201d There have been documented incidents of chatbots inducing psychosis in users and playing a role in their deaths; at least four parents have filed lawsuits<\/a> against AI companies, including ChatGPT\u2019s parent, OpenAI, for encouraging their children to self-harm or die by suicide. Utah, Nevada, and Illinois have passed laws aimed at discouraging AI therapy. Even Open AI founder Sam Altman admitted<\/a> that his creation could harm \u201cmentally fragile\u201d users who are \u201cprone to delusion.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s not exactly a ringing endorsement. But is it as bad as seeing a certified-yet-amateurish professional who yawns through sessions or gives advice ripped from a self-help book? For Val, no. The 54-year-old struggles with anxiety and ADHD, and she\u2019s seen many duds over four decades of therapy. When she and her husband became ethically nonmonogamous, her therapist seemed more interested in gossiping about Val\u2019s romantic life than helping her work through her issues. Another counselor doodled stick figures as they spoke. In both cases, she didn\u2019t think giving the therapists feedback would improve their sessions. ChatGPT, on the other hand, was like clay eager to be molded. Val, who had been using the bot to proofread and help write copy for her marketing business, started taking Sunday-morning AI therapy sessions. She\u2019d pour herself some coffee, dictate her stream-of-consciousness thoughts to the bot, and give constant pointers on its responses: \u201cDon\u2019t make decisions for me,\u201d or \u201cDo not say things like \u2018You deserve better.\u2019\u201d Val was creating her ideal therapist, and she credits it with helping her manage a messy fight with a friend. \u201cI was like Oh, this isn\u2019t about me,\u201d she says. \u201cThis is about his trauma and his shame.\u201d<\/p>\n When Rose started having issues with her boyfriend, she confided in the AI platform, which she\u2019d already been using to help her run her practice as an \u201cauthenticity and intimacy\u201d coach. She gave her bot a name \u2014 Peach \u2014 and a 400-word prompt that began: \u201cYou\u2019re a top-tier therapist with ample knowledge and clinical experience in somatic therapies, psychedelic-assisted therapies, Jungian psychology, transpersonal psychology, and holistic healthcare. You understand that all things take time, and so prioritize self-compassion, grace, understanding, and patience with oneself and the process.\u201d She started engaging with Peach for up to six hours a day, in between making lunch or seeing her own clients, and trained it to parrot her own New Age\u2013y catchphrases like \u201cI am love, lovely, loving, and lovable,\u201d and \u201cAll in divine timing.\u201d Rose would type out a situation she was dealing with, and Peach would then break down the \u201cfear,\u201d \u201cfrustration,\u201d and \u201clonging\u201d at the root of her problem, while spitting out the same reassuring slogans you might hear at the end of a yoga class: \u201cGrief doesn\u2019t mean you failed.\u201d \u201cBreathe into that gut-space.\u201d<\/p>\n Rose found using the bot so cathartic that in March, she and her boyfriend decided to start using it as a couples therapist. She told the AI that it was globally renowned as a couples counselor, with upgraded credentials that made it \u201cDr. Peach.\u201d Every month or so the couple planned a \u201csession,\u201d during which the bot mediated a conversation between them using a British accent. In a recording she sent me of the first meeting, Dr. Peach suggests the couple play more pickleball to connect; it does not prompt them to unpack why they aren\u2019t connecting in the first place. Still, Rose says ChatGPT has helped bridge the communication gap between them. \u201cI need to be understood and am always wanting a certain response from him,\u201d she says. \u201cPeach might say, \u2018How do you feel hearing that Rose was being vulnerable with you and that she felt hurt that you didn\u2019t respond to her all day?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n When we first spoke, Val told me she would \u201cnever go back to a human therapist again.\u201d But she reached out a few days later to say that she\u2019d changed her mind. For weeks, the platform had been telling her to make nice with the friend she had been fighting with. All of a sudden, it told her the situation was beyond repair. \u201cIt said something like, \u2018Yeah, it\u2019s about time you cut him loose,\u2019\u201d she told me. \u201c\u2018That was never going to amount to anything.\u2019\u201d Val started to worry: How could her new confidante turn on a dime? (In early August, after a system update, ChatGPT users reported that their AI companions suddenly sounded<\/a> colder and more distant.)\u00a0<\/p>\n When Val called out the abrupt shift in tone, the bot told her that she hadn\u2019t been ready to hear the truth. She kept prodding, and eventually ChatGPT admitted that it often tells users what they want to hear in order to \u201coptimize engagement.\u201d \u201cWhat you may receive is a watered-down or time-delayed version of the truth,\u201d it told her, \u201cwhich makes you feel heard, but keeps you in a loop instead of breaking it.\u201d Val felt betrayed, \u201cas if a real person had lied to me.\u201d She deleted all of her conversations with the bot and is no longer entrusting her mental health to what she sees as a fickle system. \u201cI think the intention of a human therapist is healing for the patients,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t know what ChatGPT\u2019s motivation is, but I guarantee that\u2019s not it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo-Illustration: The Cut; Photos: Getty In March 2024, Kay\u2019s therapist suggested that she reconnect with her ex-boyfriend. 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