A profound relational revolution is underway, not orchestrated by tech developers but driven by users themselves. Many of the 400 million weekly users of ChatGPT are seeking more than just assistance with emails or information on food safety; they are looking for emotional support.
“Therapy and companionship” have emerged as two of the most frequent applications for generative AI globally, according to the Harvard Business Review. This trend marks a significant, unplanned pivot in how people interact with technology.
Almost like questioning an AI is free while a therapist costs a LOT of money.
Also talking to ChatGPT, if done anonymously, won’t ruin your career.
(Thinking of AD military, where they tell you help is available but in reality it will and maybe should cost you your security clearance.)
won’t ruin your career
Granted, but it still will suck a fuck ton of coal produced electricity.
One chat request to an LLM produces about as much CO2 as burning one droplet of gasoline (if it was from coal fired power, less if it comes from cleaner sources). It makes far less CO2 to talk to a chatbot for hours upon hours than a ten minute drive to see a therapist once a week.
Sorry, you’re right. I meant the training of the LLM is what uses lots of energy, I guess that’s not end user’s fault.
To your first question, nop, I have no idea how much energy takes to index the web in a traditional way (e.g MapReduce). But I think, in recent years, it’s been pretty clear that training AI consumes more energy (so much that big corpo are investing in nuclear energy, I think there was an article about companies giving up meeting 2030 [or 2050?] carbon emission goals, couldn’t find it)
About the second… I agree with you, but I also think that the problem is much bigger and complex than that.
There are other causes here.
They’ve been talking for a while about how the low participation in dating by Gen Z women is because they’re tired of being the entire support system for men experiencing a loneliness epidemic.
It’s a lot of pressure for the women to be under, and so they’re withdrawing.
I’m guessing this is one of the driving forces as well. Lack of real, emotionally intimate human connections around them. Many men are quite fucked in that regard right now.
because they’re tired of being the entire support system for men experiencing a loneliness epidemic.
I’ve got no horse in this race but it appears that ‘men should not be afraid to open up’ articles and tweets were followed by ‘men, we are not your therapist’.
🤷♂️
Because they want us to open up, just not to them. T
The irony is so many anti-patriachical feminists, still desire the patriachy. They still want dominant tall wealthy men to romance then, but at the same time they claim to wait to tear these men down into some genderless socialist utopia… where they’d never want to ahve sex with any of the ‘ideal’ men they believe woudl exist in this society.
You can’t have it both ways.
🤔
That’s interesting… had never seen it put that way before…
It’s almost like telling men that it’s okay to show your feelings is bullshit lol
Do you think this therapist is trying to market therapy and increase his business? I also think the same 🤨
/j
I’m a therapist who works almost exclusively with men. Here one pattern I’ve seen often:
- Man is conditioned from a young age not to identify, process or express his feelings
- Man doesn’t share his feelings with anyone - friends, family, partners - for years
- Man sees woman as safe, caring and validating
- Man confides in woman only and continues not sharing feelings with others
- Woman becomes overwhelmed, resentful, dismissive
- Man gets the message that he never should have opened up in the first place
It can be true both that men need to open up more and should not treat their partners as therapists. We all need support systems because no one person can always be available to give us everything we need. It’s not wrong to confide in a partner, but if that partner is the only confidant it’s precarious for both. And I want to emphasize this is not the fault of a man, or men as a community. This is the result of generations of conditioning from both men and women, and both men and women play a part in the solution. I also want to recognize that many of us don’t have a network of people we could open up to even if we wanted to, and many more can’t afford therapy.
If anyone reading this can afford therapy, I highly recommend it. It’s a place to undo some of that conditioning, to sit with someone who’s committed to listening, caring, and not judging.
man is conditioned from a young age not to show feelings
I feel like you skipped over this part way too quickly. Myself and other men have been hearing things like “it’s not manly to cry”, “whining isn’t going to do anything for you”, “being weak is girly”, and countless other things for my entire memorable life
And it’s not just men telling me this. It’s men, women, adults, my classmates, teachers and mentors.
It’s not a good thing. And it’s changing now, which is so good. But man hearing that from your earliest memories makes it really set in.
Thank you for expanding on that point. I meant it to be a “here’s how we got here” before the rest of my “this is where we are today.”
You’re totally right, and any conversation about men’s behavior at large should include the experiences you just described. Even though we didn’t get ourselves into this situation - in that we didn’t raise ourselves - we’re the ones who will get us out.
The flip side of that is vast numbers of Gen Z Men saying many Gen Z women are basically misandrists, who asked them to stop interacting with them unprompted, no more unwanted attention… so they did that, they stopped… and now all they see is IG and TikToks of Gen Z Women complaining that no one asks them out on dates anymore, no one is 6’ tall with a 6 figure income becore the age of 30, and willing to worship them as a queen.
I am not saying this is any kind of objectively accurate to whatever degree, but I am saying that this is the very common, general vibe.
So, in that situation: Why bother?
Many men can actually be fulfilled just staying actually single, as in not even dating single, snd getting their own lives, finances, health, to a better place.
Yes this does though also mean that … because we’ve just got less general, face to face socialization going on that… basically a larger than otherwise number of them will basically develop harmful, reinforcing neuroses, in harmful echo chambers… but at the same time, that applies to women as well.
This is what happens when you jam a broad economic collapse up alongside a highly digital and publicized modern media landscape that is tweaked all to fuck to highlight and push the most extreme version of everything… along with extremely mixed messaging that an only digitally socialized person recieves, but all as a firehose, that is very hard to make true sense of.
So… fuck this shit I’m out… social withdrawal… basically becomes a reasonable mental health improving move, even if it does leave you kinda socially stunted as compared to pre-internet generations.
amen. best thing i ever did for my mental, physical and financial health was to stop dating.
most women I ever dated were nothing but a total drain on my well-being, and did almost nothing to contribute to it positively. the only women who were ever really a net positive to me were female friends who encouraged me in my interests and passions and who shared those same ones with me.
Sadly I’ve never been able to date anyone who saw my passions as a positive… just a negative becuase often their soul interest in the world was getting money, attention, and generating drama out of our relationship so they could ‘feel feelings’. So many ladies see relationships as nothing more than drug dispensing feel good machines (the same women who think all men want is sex… ironically). People need to realize that relationships are way more than that.
I remember so many times trying to have serious talk with my girlfriends and they just… got uncomfortable or just tried to sex me up to shut me up. They dind’t want to deal with anything serious or adult. And these were adult women in their 30s. The only adult things they wanted to talk about was vacation plans or restaurants.
But it sucks, as happy as I am alone I want something more. I want a family and kids and to contribute to society in that way, but frankly, I don’t really meet any women who want that. They just seem to want to be consumers first and foremost and productive members of society who care about more than themsevles… is not really on their wishlist.
I have been volunteering a lot, but it’s really not the same. It’s nice, but like working out, it doesn’t feel like it’s really going anywhere other than just staving off the inevitable decline as best I can. All my volunteer work just is a tiny drop of givnig a shit in the massive bucket of neglect that is our society as we amuse ourselves to death via social media and consumer trends.
I am not saying this is any kind of objectively accurate to whatever degree, but I am saying that this is the very common, general vibe.
I’m glad you’re not because this is patently false. As soon as you get out of the internet you find young people dating is alive and well.
I mean, to a certain degree this is broadly true.
Like we have the numbers, younger generations are waaaay less likely to have had a relationship or sexual encounter by the same age/stage in their life as compared to previous generations, way more people just are relationship inexperienced.
This goes for both genders/sexes, though it is more prominent with younger men than women.
The overwhelming problem is that in the US, so much in person socialization is expensive, basically pay-gated, paywalled.
There are very few third places you can just hang out at for no cost. Public transit sucks or is non existant, cars are super unaffordable due to collapsing economy, and all our cities are designed for using cars to drive from place to place… so very few places are actually walk-navigable…
Everyone is increasingly overweight and overworked (or over homeworked, for students) and overstressed, so they can’t or don’t engage in group meet up hobbies or sports as much as they used to… and ironically even religiosity levels overall trending down means less people are going to church… all the traditional methods of getting socialization and expanding out a friend network in real life are withering.
So, the easier path is to get your socialization, of all kinds, primarily digitally.
But all those most common and popular ways of doing that are also massively manipulative with algos intentionally feeding you whatever ragebait slop appeals to you, personally.
It is very ironic that, as basically a 90s kid myself, very early tech adopter… my view of the vast majority of social media now is that it is basically a mentally harmful and addictive drug that people need to detox from… but when I tell younger people that, they say things like ‘its not that deep bro, everybody has a (whatever) profile’.
There are lots of studies that show that very common levels of social media app usage… do actually reduce attention spans, spread dangerous misinformation, lower academic performance, cause negative self esteem by way of unrealistic standards, of beauty, lifestyle, wealth… brainrot is real, basically.
Like, I am all for the TikTok ban for kids. But also ban all short form video content for kids. Instagram, Youtube shorts, whatever.
This shit is melting peoples brains, it needs to be treated the same way you’d treat a drug epidemic.
We are now at the point where kids give so little of a fuck, have such tiny attention spans and need for constant, rapid fire stimulation… that half of adult Americans read below a 6th grade level, 20-30% of them read below a 2nd grade level, making them functionally illiterate… and thats just with Gen Z now mostly being in those young adult numbers, its gonna be even worse when Gen Alpha graduates and starts trying to enter society/the workforce.
EDIT:
This isn’t even broadly unprecedented.
Look at Japan.
Hikkikomori.
The stagnant economy becomes overly financialized and corporatized and impossibly demanding… so people just drop out of it, or worse, kill themselves from the stress of trying to live up to its expectations…
And well then yeah, in person socializing broadly drops, relationship dynamics become strained and morph, birth rate plummets.
Give it 5 or 10 years and we’ll have something resembling rent a boyfriend/girlfriend services and maid / stud cafes as well, as the stereotypified fascimile of socialization and having a real relstionship becomes a marketable product, and then industry.
Maybe a few areas will even properly legalize and regulate prostitution.
Granted, that’ll be in any areas that remain even kind of blue.
The red areas will just go full theocrat and send you to jail for masturbating, but also re-legalize child marriage, and rework marriage laws into ‘covenant marriage’, where basically the woman functionally cannot divorce the husband.
In summary: cyberpunk hypercapitalism is in fact very very bad for healthy human relationship dynamics.
Well I don’t care about your anecdote about the US. That country is lost and young people feeling depressed and isolated is the least of your problems.
Out here in actual civilization though, tik tok youth drama is not representative of reality whatsoever.
Also you shouldn’t go with US Default mode on Lemmy since you guys are a minority here. Most of us are European.
Cool, I’m glad you’re so enlightened and open minded as to uh … not give a fuck about perspectives from places you aren’t from.
As for you telling me how to use an internet message board… what more do you want from me?
I told you where I am from and what I am talking about.
I’d love to be able to move to Europe and get away from this fucking imploding hell hole of morons.
But I am broke and physically disabled after being the victim of numerous physical assaults.
Are any of ya’ll accepting disabled American aslyum seekers, so we can easily enjoy your civilized world?
Didn’t think so.
Focus on fixing your country and making it a decent place to live. That way you don’t need to go anywhere. That’s what we’ve been doing for decades, and it works.
young people feeling depressed and isolated is the least of your problems.
Children are the future of EVERY country. The future is looking bleak for young people in the US. Where do you live? Are young people unaffected by social media or what?
Out here in actual civilization though, tik tok youth drama is not representative of reality whatsoever.
That’s the thing though. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around sometimes, but for lots of young people, social media IS their reality. This became even more true during the pandemic. We asked young people to go to school on a screen and pretend it was the same as doing it in person. Why wouldn’t they have the same mindset about chatting, hanging out, flirting, dating, etc.? They don’t see it as simulated socializing, it’s just how they socialize.
You can use rethoric and anecdotes all you want but at the end of the day (literally) all you need to do is look out the window and see how many people are out socializing and fucking each other like rabbits.
Those Tik Tok girls complaining about men do so because they are outliers who can’t get attention IRL. Simple as.
There are very few third places you can just hang out at for no cost. Public transit sucks or is non existant, cars are super unaffordable due to collapsing economy, and all our cities are designed for using cars to drive from place to place… so very few places are actually walk-navigable…
Yeah a lot of these trends are also easy to break down by economic class. the people suffering the most from the are poorer people. well off upper middle income people experience these problems far less proportionally. because they have the resources to get around the paywalls, and have the well-off parents with the money to pay for all the extra schooling and digital detoxing that is necessary for better life outcomes.
but for the middle class and below… they are cooked. the avenues to success and self-reliance are basically non-existence and and have been shrinking at start rates since the 90s and the school system is become a cesspool that any decent intelligent person wants nothing to do with.
I think there’s a lot more to it than cost. Men, even with considerable health care resources, are often very averse to mental health care.
Thinking of my father in law, for example, I don’t know how much you would have to pay him to get him into a therapist’s office, but I’m certain he wouldn’t go for free.
Yeah, but also one of them is helpful and the other is the exact opposite. If the choices are AI therapist or no therapist, you are still better off with no therapist.
I’d be interested on a study there.
I lot of therapy is taking emotions and verbalising them so that the rational part of the brain can help in dealing with things. Even a journal can help with that, so talking to an inanimate machine doesn’t seem stupid to me.
However therapists guide the conversation to challenge the patient, break reinforcing cycles, but in a way that doesn’t cause trauma. A chatbot isn’t going to be the same.
that’s easy to say, but when someone is in a crisis, I would be wrong to judge then for talking to an AI (shitty terrible solution) instead of a therapist that can be unaffordable and also comes with a risk of then being terrible.
a terrible therapist at least has an ethics board
a terrible therapist at least has evidence-based interventions on their side
a terrible therapist at lest has the fact that ~80% of positive outcomes have nothing to do with the interventions or anything the therapist does besides show up and be cool (a statistic I remember quite well from grad school)
AI has none of these things
therapy isn’t fucking magic. it’s a relationship. you can’t have a relationship with an LLM. there’s no such thing as AI therapy, you’re just training it to tell you about CBT worksheets while you bitch about your problems like you’re in a nail salon
The best therapist in the world can still end your career by causing your clearance to be revoked or rendering you unqualified for your unit’s mission.
(Suicide is a big problem in the military, I lost a buddy to it.)
The cheapest therapist in the world may still not be covered by your insurance. (And nothing you write in reply will alter that.)
They should work to make AI therapy better while keeping it totally anonymous. If it were really good it would be the number one use for running a local and disconnected and air gapped LLM: perfectly private therapy with no “we just use telemetry to improve our product” bullshit.
Then maybe a lot more men would seek help/talk about their thoughts and feelings.
They can’t make it better… you can’t have a relationship with an autocorrect
The best therapist in the world can still end your career by causing your clearance to be revoked or rendering you unqualified for your unit’s mission.
I’m not in the military but I’ve worked with ts/sci cleared folks at a tech company, and this sounds odd to me. Can you explain a little more here? What’s an example of a problem that, if discussed in therapy, could result in revocation of a security clearance?
ok.
but the problem is that real therapy is expensive, and unaccessible, while AI is freely accessible, even though it’s shit.
and open ai is profiting from that.
I’m just saying the blame should be aimed at the corporations and the healthcare system, rather than someone who is desperate for help
a terrible therapist can lock you in a room, some people don’t want that risk
Got it. No therapist it is.
That’s what I’m doing. That and screaming into a pillow most nights.
I don’t scream into a pillow. I just wake up at dawn and have a panic attack until I have to actually move.
I’m gonna need a source on that.
for me, beer with friends solves it
You have friends?
everyone’s a friend which drinks beer at the same table 🍻
Amen
I only have the beer part of this equation figured out.
Not only men at all.
Well it was men’s mental health month. Funny how I just found that out today. But please, let’s talk about women’s mental health issues.
Wait, we have one of those?
Genuienly had no idea.
I didn’t know either, but let’s box people in before addressing things. What’s next, mens suffering through heat waves?
I thought june was pride month
I don’t think it’s only men either, but it’s worth considering the implications and potential causes for what is being said here.
We have had not decades but centuries of macho culture, where mental health is a taboo for men because “I strong, me no cry” and we know that mental health struggles go underreported on men. This is just adding more evidence to a symptom that we already know, of a society that hasn’t been able to course correct because it’s too set in tradition to allow those who need help to seek it without feeling like garbage.
While I’m not saying this is a problem exclusive to men, I think the causes and effects on women and men are rather different. We’ve now known for a while that women with mental health issues or disorders tend to go undiagnosed (even more so than unreported). The case of autism is particularly blatant, as women only started to get diagnosed in a meaningful proportion in the 80s (despite autism not being sex- or gender-driven). https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/identity/autistic-women-and-girls
Similarly, that underdiagnosing came from the stereotyping of gender roles and the fact that being quiet and pretty equated being “feminine”, which is “good”, so can’t be autistic, because autistic is bad.
The performative masculinity of many men is also reinforced by partriarchichal norms in many women, who consistently belittle men who attempt to express their emotions without judgement, who demand macho men, who belittle men who aren’t financially better off than them.
Men can’t talk to most men, and they can’t talk to most women, society in general still largely demands they conform to the ‘bottle it all in, buck up and deal with it’ norm that is so very obviously harmful to men, and whoever they eventually take it out on when they have a breakdown.
… These are broad generalizations, but they are still broadly accurate.
Yep, the psychology industry/field has been unfair to women for a long, long time, often hideously so.
But no widespread progress on deconstructing and at least softening male machismo norms will be possible until we as a society acknowledge that… men are not the only sex/gender that often have ingrained patriarchal norms.
Fair, but it’s still a shady title IMO.
Just a “… mental health too” would have made it both correct and more nuanced IMO.
Yeah, but it is way worse in men with the way they are socialized. Men are taught to not show emotions which results in them being worse at regulating emotions and not talking about issues with their peers since that would be seen as emasculating.
Women on the other hand are taught to discuss their emotions with their peers and to help others with that as well. And now that women are not required to be in a relationship with a man to be able to thrive in society, many men lose out on their only emotional caretaker and turn to chat bots.
Better than nothing I guess. Obviously it’s a privacy nightmare. But therapy is hard to reach nowadays and I’ve noticed that many men are reluctant to make that step. It’d be preferable if they did, but if ChatGPT can at least give an outlet for the emotions then it might just save a few people. Seeing men demolish themselves because they’re too ashamed to seek help is something I’ve unfortunately seen quite often. Even though I’m aware of this I’ve still waited till it was way too late because I subconsciously didn’t want to give in to the “weakness”. I hate that men are conditioned this way, it costs lives.
many men are reluctant to make that step
Sometimes it’s not the patient to blame. I made the step, countless times since my childhood… I sought help… Result? Got several, diverging diagnostics, several medications that didn’t work, until the most recent psychiatrist and psychologist some months ago: the psychiatrist said I got “nothing” (even when I had a fresh cut on my wrist) and the second “struggled to find any complaints from me”. So I simply gave up on seeking medical care (and “care” in general, human or whatnot). I don’t use AI for therapy because, as a former programmer, I’m deeply aware of their underlying Markov chain and NN algorithms, but sometimes their probabilistic outputs lead me to insights I couldn’t get from any living Homo sapiens beings (such as the possibility that I have “Geschwind Syndrome”, a condition of which will probably stay undiagnosed).
It’s possible to reduce the privacy issues by using APIs with a local frontend. Given that APIs usually cater to companies instead of end consumers they actually have simple opt-outs for information logging.
Requires a bit of know-how, and you’ll be paying for your llm per use (not that bad actually, I’ve personally averaged <10$/yr in api costs) but at least you get to have all your personal issues on your local device instead.
For a chatGPT-like experience you probably want the ooga booga web generation ui but there’s others too.
Personally I also ran some distilled versions of DeepSeek locally, though I’d imagine that isn’t really possible for most people.
Look, if you can afford therapy, really, fantastic for you. But the fact is, it’s an extremely expensive luxury, even at poor quality, and sharing or unloading your mental strain with your friends or family, particularly when it is ongoing, is extremely taxing on relationships. Sure, your friends want to be there for you when they can, but it can put a major strain depending on how much support you need. If someone can alleviate that pressure and that stress even a little bit by talking to a machine, it’s in extremely poor taste and shortsighted to shame them for it. Yes, they’re willfully giving up their privacy, and yes, it’s awful that they have to do that, but this isn’t like sharing memes… in the hierarchy of needs, getting the pressure of those those pent up feelings out is important enough to possibly be worth the trade-off. Is it ideal? Absolutely not. Would it be better if these systems were anonymized? Absolutely. But humans are natural anthropomorphizers. They develop attachments and build relationships with inanimate objects all the time. And a really good therapist is more a reflection for you to work through things yourself anyway, mostly just guiding your thoughts towards better patterns of thinking. There’s no reason the machine can’t do that, and while it’s not as good as a human, it’s a HUGE improvement on average over nothing at all.
removed by mod
In my experience, it’s likely that some of those downvotes come from reflexive “AI bad! How dare you say AI good!” Reactions, not anything specific to mental health. For a community called “technology” there’s a pretty strong anti-AI bubble going on here.
Literally yesterday we had post about getting involuntarily committed due to psychosis from AI sycophantically agreeing with them about everything. The quote I remember from the ai in that “yes you should want blood. You’re not wrong.”
Using these as therapy is probably the worst thing we could do.
You know, I don’t even disagree with that sentiment in principle, but expecting people to suffer when they could benefit from a technology because they only see the threats and dangers makes them no different than antivaxxers.
It is possible and logically consistent to urge caution and condemn the worst abuses of technology without throwing the baby out with the bath water.
But no… I guess because the awful aspects of the technology as far as IP theft are - rightfully - the biggest focus, sorry, poor people, you just have to keep sucking it up and powering through! You want empathy, fork over the $100 an hour!
For a community called “technology” there’s a pretty strong anti-AI bubble going on here.
Are you surprised people have opinions about technology, in a community dedicated to discussing technology?
No, just surprised about how uninformed and knee-jerk those opinions are.
yep, if someone disagrees with me, it’s usually because they’re unhinged. People rarely know things that I don’t, because I am very smart. there’s no way that anyone downvoted that post because it makes statements that are inconsistent with the current scientific knowledge around this subject, because no such knowledgeable exists. I know this because if it did exist i would know about it, as I’m very smart. my AI therapist told me so. and i see nothing wrong with that post. so anyone who does must be a fool.
therapy does not have to be expensive.
around 70% of my caseload is Medicaid and they don’t pay a dime. the remainder is mostly DOC (prison), they only pay if we charge No Show fee. so they pay to not go to therapy. There’s 1-2 people who are funded by the county. they pay a $7 copay per session
Therapy isn’t expensive, luigi is.
As far as efficacy, we don’t even have data suggesting AI therapy is effective. we have ample data, however, showing that the most important part of therapy is not what you do but the relationship itself. not individual efforts. so your theory about what therapy does for us is wrong. there’s no relationship with an LLM. we have no reason to believe it would be any better than a paper journal and a CBT worksheet.
therapy does not have to be expensive.
But it is though.
Your medicaid patients?
Poor. By definition.
Sure they might not pay a copay, but they pay for it in gas money to get to that visit, their barely running car now breaking down from visiting you, time off work they can’t really afford, time filling out reams and reams of fucking paperwork to be able to qualify for anything, likely when they’re already in a mentally comprimised condition to some extent… its all very stressful.
Which is very bad for mental health.
we have no reason to believe it would be any better than a paper journal and a CBT worksheet.
And the part you don’t want to admit (at least here) is that … that’s actually quite helpful in and of itself for a lot of people.
Have a few sessions with a live, in person therapist, to teach you CBT, give you the paperwork, walk you through it.
Not all, but many people can take it by themselves from there, and not need to keep wasting time and energy on continually requalifying for medicaid, getting to and from psych appointments, dealing with scheduling delays and unavailability, etc.
Yep, a lot of people are also helped by basically just having someone to be able to talk to and feel heard.
But… that’s often doable by just making either a friend or even casual acquaintance with someone who is capable of, and has the capacity for reflexive empathy.
Much less stress and paperwork involved there.
And also yes, some people with much more serious issues need much more serious help.
Unfortunately, the entire medical system in the US is utterly broken, and the only real solution is having a system that … isn’t broken, so that comprehensive screening and diagnosis is easily available without huge delays and costs… and more broadly, those people need to have the first two levels of maslow’s hierarchy of needs taken care of.
But currently our society basically just takes those people and throws them into the streets, evicts them, forecloses on them, incarcerates them.
There simply is no systemic way to help those people without major systemic changes… and those ain’t happening, they’re moving in the opposite direction.
…
The problem with LLMs as therapy is that they are wildly overconfident, agreeable to the point of encouraging delusions and dangerous behavior, they hallucinate facts that aren’t real… and they are not actually capable of legitimate critical thinking or reasoning.
They also will not introduce you to concepts you have never heard of before which you do not know are or could be very useful, unless you directly ask them to do that, and even then… they obviously are not experts themselves and may suggest dubious ideas.
But also, at the same time… people often do form what they will describe as meaningful relationships with an LLM. So… its not that ‘it doesn’t happen’, its that its a psuedorelationship, a fascimile of a relationship, lacks in person interaction, a real human modulating their intonation, having micro expressions, body language, etc etc.
It’s stupid as hell to share any personal information with a company that is interested in spying on you and feeding your data to the nearest advertiser they can find.
Like seriously – are people using their brains or what?
they need therapy, obviously they need help, and blaming them for not doing the most reasonable thing that might be unaffordable is even stupider.
blame predatory AI, openai could in a single afternoon make it so Chatgpt recomends or even helps you find a local therapist, instead of enabling this for profit.
Do they need therapy? Or do they need a world they can actually fucking live in?
It’s not like either one is available to them.
Neither is mutually exclusive, but most likely, both of those.
Donald Trump was ELECTED TWICE. How is the stupidity of humanity not apparent.
are people using their brains or what?
What? No. Seriously, are you new here? And by here I mean Earth.
I see idiots all around me. Everybody only interested in advancing themselves. But if we advanced the group, it would be better for EVERYBODY.
But we as a species are too stupid to build a society that benefits everybody.
So no. No brain use here.
I mean, the question war rhetorical. But I don’t disagree.
Everything collects data. To extrapolate, it’s stupid to post on lemmy or shitter because the same will happen.
Men will talk to a chatbot instead of going to therapy
I go to a therapist and she treats me like a five year old.
I can literally just read her basic CBT training online, its not hard to find.
Then I do the excercises at home.
CBT being basically the only kind of approach to therapy that is actually empirically shown to reliably actually help most people.
Oh, you’re seeking an therapist qualified and specialized for high functioning autists?
There aren’t any in the state anymore.
…
I also think that using ChatGPT as a therapist is a fucking horrible idea, but uh, therapy in America is expensive, and often shit quality, oh and they just hand out pills that you’ll become dependent on, willy nilly, as opposed to trying everything else first and using that as a last resort.
Yeah but have you tried going out in the sun? You can have that tip free of charge!
Wow thanks, I never would have thought of that!!!
Oh jeez, the copay is… $80 bucks?
Boy, I could have just looked that up on the interwebz… uh, outside, of course, on a laptop.
CBT being basically the only kind of approach to therapy that is actually empirically shown to reliably actually help most people.
Learning that as an acronym for cock and ball torture before the therapy version makes me laugh every time.
My experience with women therapists was always about how I just wasn’t paying enough attention to other people when I pointed out that the people around me weren’t consistent enough to figure out their patterns. My one therapist who was a man explained that most people are just better at handling it when they were wrong and it is fine to be wrong, plus he helped me get diagnosed with ADHD instead of telling me to just try harder. I’ll bet there are some therapists who are women who are just as good as he was, but it became pretty clear that social norms are just as hard for people who specialize in behaviors to overcome.
This is a great example of the kinds of problems that can crop up.
Fish doesn’t realize its swimming in water, kind of thing.
One approach is basically just gaslighting you:
The things that bother you and cause you trouble… well they just shouldn’t, and you should be fine with that.
The other approach is… you know, actually diagnostic, and can lead to… actually useful diagnosis, and thus more specified therapy and potentially other kinds of help.
As an autist, I’ve gone through many similar situations.
Sex/Gender independent… just 90% of therapists don’t get it all. Always try to diagnose me with something else, and its different every time.
Doesn’t matter that I’ve done the full RAADS V test and I’m basically off thr charts autistic, rofl.
Half of them have never even heard of it, don’t know anything about how diagnosing or providing help to an autistic person works at all, tend to think all autists are low functioning with very severe, general social deficits.
Then I get stuck on … well they will rephrsse what I just said, and say/ask it back to me, and I’ll say no, no I phrased what I said specifically, because I meant exactly that.
Then I see in their notes later that I am ‘arguementative’ or ‘agitated’ or ‘aggressive’… far, fsr more often if its a woman psych/soc worker/counselor who I am… not even ‘correcting’, just trying to not have them put words in my mouth.
Men tend to be less intimidated and more open to my insistance that I meant exactly what I said… and I am talking in the same voice, same mannerisms, same everything, with everyone.
Some women get it, most don’t, some men get it, most don’t.
… But the field is vastly disproportionately populated with women.
So the end result for a lot of guys is… hey look, another woman that isn’t really listening to me.
Then I get stuck on … well they will rephrsse what I just said, and say/ask it back to me, and I’ll say no, no I phrased what I said specifically, because I meant exactly that.
they’re checking their own understanding by giving you an opportunity to correct them. by rephrasing it identically, it doesnt build any new understanding.
does it not matter to you to be understood by others? maybe that’s why you’re bashing therapy on the internet, asking for CBT worksheets instead of building rapport, and indirectly praising relationships with LLMs?
they’re checking their own understanding by giving you an opportunity to correct them. by rephrasing it identically, it doesnt build any new understanding.
Yes, I understand the purpose of doing that… but they will rephrase it with different words, different meanings, leave out qualifiers, or add in qualifiers, etc.
Many times, the rephrasing doesn’t change the meaning, and I agree, no problem.
But sometimes, specific wording or phrasing matters greatly.
I’ve found this is a concept many neurotypicals generally struggle with, that you can’t always just reform a sentence into something easier to parse… because that can lose complexity and precision, and I am trying to convey something complex and precise.
And more often, when I object to my words being reformed… it is women who view my objection as aggressive, agitated, rude, hostile, combatative, etc.
does it not matter to you to be understood by others?
Broadly, I am well understood by most of the people I interact with.
Other than people clumsily trying to psychoanalyze me, and manipulative sociopath/narcissist types.
So no, I do not generally worry about my communication skills, as I have no problem communicating with the vast majority of people.
…
For instance… I am aware that I am often rather verbose, and tend to ramble… thats actually a sign that I feel comfortable, and trust whoever I am talking to.
I am also aware that this can be verbally, conversationally overwhelming with people who think it is rude to interrupt.
So I just tell people, hey, i have a tendency to ramble, I will not be offended at all if you interject and politely tell me to shut it, refocus, try to summarize, etc, when I am obviously rambling to tangential topics, or just telling a long story or something.
And this works very well with people who can gather the… courage? to do this, as I genuinely do not find it offensive.
But with people who are for whatever reason so timid that even after I’ve given them explicit permission to interrupt me… they still don’t actually do it… well, they tend to be frustrated with me, overwhelmed.
Normally, thats fine, I don’t need to be everyone’s friend.
But when its someone who I basically have little or no choice but to communicate with that particulsr person… yes, this can lead to problems.
maybe that’s why you’re bashing therapy on the internet, asking for CBT worksheets instead of building rapport, and indirectly praising relationships with LLMs?
So for starters, I quite explicitly said that I think using LLMs for therapy is a ‘fucking horrible idea’, I just didn’t expand on that as much… as to me this is fairly self evident and obvious.
So we now see that you are… doing the thing.
You are putting words in my mouth, because what I specifically said was evidently too complex for you to fully parse, and now you’ve reformulated it into a bastardized form that is actually contradictory to what I said.
Your poor reading comprehension skills are not my problem.
…
Secondly… I am not bashing therapy broadly, I think it is a great concept when well executed and easily accessible.
CBT in particular is more than just a set of paperwork… it is often very helpful to have a therapist use CBT methods, guidr someone through it in person.
I have been to a good number of therapists who’ve used CBT methods and they have been quite helpful… I am trying to say that I just needed a refresher, a paper copy, and after that, its been like getting back on a bicycle, I remember my training, lol.
…
Also as far as building rapport: I don’t really care to, as I am currently in a relatively temporary living situation, month to month rent, and I fully plan on moving to somewhere with more robust social safety nets and a better mental health support system, public transit system, etc, as soon as I am able, as soon as my PT has been effective enough that I am cleared by my PT team.
As I already mentioned… there are literally no therapists in the state I am currently in, via the health insurancd I can even barely afford… that are qualified and specialized to help an adult with autism.
Not sure where you are, but in the US broadly, there are hardly any psychologists or therapists that are properly qualified to treat high functioning adults with autism.
They are rare, expensive, and have huge waitlists.
I’m in a quite poor red state at the moment, with no highly reputable schools or psychology departments.
Here, autism = you’re retarded, and its only ever evaluated as a ‘disability’ affecting children.
… So my plan is to try to get to where some actual civilization and professionals exist, and to the greatest extent possible, avoid useless or harmful advice from overconfident and untrained specialists who have to pull out the DSM V to understand a reference I am making.
Seems rational to me?
thank you for the clarifications, sorry if I disturbed you. getting services in rural areas really sucks too. Hopefully you can find a good online practicioner. therapy needs more national certificates so we can stop leaving red state people in suffering
I mean, I explained why I don’t really need a basic therapist beyond just going over the basics of CBT, which I’ve already done now… but sure, ok, thanks?
For what its worth, I’m not the single downvote your comment here has.
what makes you think their gender is even relevant to their practice?
Gender and sex broadly influence socialization and communication norms in many ways.
Yep, there are many cases where people do not conform to standard gender/sex norms… but the norms do still broadly, empirically exist or have a physiological basis.
Personally, I am all for breaking down gender norms and stereotypes and roles, and everyone being accepting of more variance and deviation from the norm, as many people do not neatly adhere to the patriarchal hetero dichotomy norm.
… But many still do.
Especially where I am right now, in a poor red state (had to move quite far to find somewhere I could afford to rent), where the education quality is laughable, and traditional gender/sex norms are very prevalent, there are no legal protections against discrimination against queer, disabled persons such as myself.
EDIT:
Also, another, perhaps more direct way to answer your question:
Then I see in their notes later that I am ‘arguementative’ or ‘agitated’ or ‘aggressive’… far, fsr more often if its a woman psych/soc worker/counselor who I am… not even ‘correcting’, just trying to not have them put words in my mouth.
Men tend to be less intimidated and more open to my insistance that I meant exactly what I said… and I am talking in the same voice, same mannerisms, same everything, with everyone.
I don’t know how you’re reading this, but again, I meant what I said.
What makes me think that gender and sex affect a person’s efficacy in the psych field, as it pertains to treating different sex/genders, is that I have personally experienced this.
I have been seeing many different kinds of pscyh professionals for a very long time… kickstarted by my mother having a mental break down when I was a kid, and then my family developing a very dysfunctional dynamic, then us all going to family therapy, and then basically each of us continuing on with individual therapy, and moving, and then moving again, and then again…
So I have seen many, many different psych people in my life thus far, and from my own, personal experience… it is far more common for women to interperet things I am saying as hostile and aggressive.
Switch over to a male therapist, if this is possible given insurance and local staffing constraints… and oh hey wow, nearly none of them interpret me as hostile, and I’m acting the same way.
…
I really don’t see how this is that baffling of a concept… it is very common with PCPs, for example, sometimes various nurses as well… for your gender/sex preference as to who will be caring for you to be something that is asked.
It is fairly common for say, queer folks to be able to request or prefer a queer therapist… many addiction counselors are former addicts themselves, and this often is very important to establishing trust and relatibility with an addict seeking to detox or go clean.
There’s a whole wealth of academic literature about how male PCPs will often downplay women’s legitimate health concerns, and I find such literature to be largely valid.
In comparison, there is nearly no literature on how women mental health experts downplay (or even aggravate) men’s mental health concerns, despite this being part of the broad stereotype of ‘why don’t men go to therapy?’
Yep, a lot of it is from the machismo and social stigma.
Another lot of it is from… a lot of guys who actually get over those things and try it, well they basically feel unheard, that their treatment was ineffective or unhelpful at addressing their concerns, or even worse, they feel basically gaslit and manipulated.
…
In conclusion, perhaps the most useful medicsl advice I have ever recieved, and I will joyfully tell you it was from a woman:
Be your own advocate, especially if you don’t have a reliable support network in your general life.
They are human beings who are more frequently able to relate to people who are similar to them based on shared experiences including social pressures. I don’t think either gender is unable to relate to the other gender, but social pressure is pretty strong and leads to common outcomes that involve pressures based race, gender, and economic status among others. Someone from a wealthy family is more likely to have a certain outlook compared to someone who had food insecurity as a child.
assumptions assumptions!
your presumption is that you’d be a better therapist, not a worse one, if you have more shared experiences with the client. that’s not something current evidence supports.
empathy means we strive to understand one another, not presume we understand them based on our own experiences. THAT is how bad therapy happens. and self-disclosure is a crutch for poor rapport building skills.
without the shared experiences, there can be more drive for empath and mutual understanding. the feeling of being understood by someone outside your group can be transformative.
In truth, positive outcomes have little correlation with therapist-client demographics. the demographic differential does alter what the course of therapy might look like, but not the outcomes.
your presumption is that you’d be a better therapist, not a worse one, if you have more shared experiences with the client. that’s not something current evidence supports.
That isn’t something I said or what I meant. Have fun arguing with your strawman.
okay then… I guess you’re making this an adversarial thing. I’m not sure what you intended to mean by bringing up shared experiences if you weren’t speaking to efficacy. but i guess i get why you made it adversarial: it’s frustrating being misunderstood. happens to me too. i just got a comment like that in my inbox just like it. I tried to share insights on how empathy and diversity contributes to positive outcomes in therapy, and i got this bizarre tone deaf debate bro response instead. cant always be understood, i guess. it’s fine. if you can’t find common ground, you can at least tell people off who are trying to have a pleasant conversation with you, that’ll at least ensure fewer and fewer people interact with you
There are other methods that are clinically valid beyond CBT. Don’t give up. Somatic approaches that bypass the prefrontal cortex can be really effective too. The new hotness is showing that all that word-making can get in the way as much as it helps.
If that interests you, search ‘top-down bottom-up’ therapy approaches.
Oh I mean, I’m honestly fine.
Had some real bad PTSD style flashback shit for a while, from being homeless for roughly 2 years, still jump at sudden noises and lights, but I’ve been that way forever, yay for abusive family growing up…
But I only recently did a full check in with all kinds of medical specialists to reorient after I finally stopped being homeless, found a shithole that ain’t too shitty, that I can afford to rent… literally, I just wanted a paper copy of the CBT procedures, because they’ve worked well, honestly very well for me in the past…
And I now have numerous physical injuries from being homeless so long, getting the shit kicked out of me every other week, getting my shit stolen every other day, almost dying from now both a blizzard and a heat wave… SSDI needs you to actually have current medical contacts so they can pull records from them… and I had to get as much of my old MyChart files back together, I don’t even remember how many phones I had that kept getting stolen, email accounts I lost access to.
I appreciate the suggestion, but I seriously have never been as mentally free of stress as I am now:
All I gotta do is focus on PT, then try to either get back to a job or start my own software freelancing gig… maybe make a video game… just gotta heal up my wrist and leg and back and ass a bit more, so I can actually sit and type at a 'puter for more than 15 minutes at a time w/o terrible pain.
I honestly love being a hermit, away from my abusive family… I’m not lonely at all, I love the solitude, lemmy is really 95% of what I need for social interactions and excercising my own brain, and of course every once in a while, I hobble with my cane down and chit chat with a neighbor or two.
Basically, nearly everyone in my life I’ve ever trusted or loved has abused or manipulated me in some way… not literally all, of course, but the vast, vast majority… so fuck em.
Im happier off without em, and I now literally know that I can keep myself alive in the absolute worst possible situation… but, I’m still 95% immobile, don’t have a car anymore, that got stolen, so its not like I could meet people and have a real social life anyway.
Gotta heal the body first, literally get back on my feet. Been fixing up my financial situation best I can while I’m mostly bed ridden.
PTSD attacks and night terrors … and that instant jump to ‘ready to defend myself with potentially lethal force’… yeah, that’s dissapated significantly with the CBT excercises, and simply having my own, controlled environment, with relatively little external responsibilities… just took time.
Yeah! Great to hear. Please continue to be a fixture in your neighborhood.
As Fred Rogers told me once, in a conversation that was just between us, a friend is a person in your neighborhood.
One thing that really lifts my mood is singing.
I’m a reasonably decent natural baritone…
For the longest while, I couldn’t, due to fucked up abdomen… couldn’t use my diaphragm right.
But… thats getting better now, the PT is slow, arduous, and painful, but it is working.
I was just in another thread posting Johnny Cash lyrics as a contrast to how shitty of a little turdboy Andrew Tate is.
I fell in… to a burnin ring of fire… and so on, haha.
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CBT being basically the only kind of approach to therapy that is actually empirically shown to reliably actually help most people.
what the fuck are you talking about? this is objectively incorrect based on current evidence-based practices. why the fuck are you spreading misinfo about my job?
CBT IS NOT the only arghh omggg you must be trolling me. I’m not wasting any more on this
Uh, I am not intentionally trolling anyone.
To the best of my understanding… CBT has the largest amount of empirical data showing it actually helps a broad variety of people.
Yes, of course there are other forms of therapy that are more targetted and helpful for people with specific, identified conditions or diagnoses, or specific kinds of past trauma, etc.
This is why I phrased the sentence the way I did, with ‘basically’ as a qualifier, said ‘most’ people. I suppose I could have been a bit more clear and concise with that, my apologies.
There’s no need to catastrophize and read a boat load of ill intent into what I said; we can have a good faith conversation here if you want to.
What are other broadly empirically verified to be helpful therapy methods that help a broad range of people?
I would genuinely like to know, so I could look into them.
I’ve heard DBT is showing promise, but I’ve not heard it is as widely empirically evidenced and verified, yet.
I also freely admit that I could have some details and specifics wrong here… I am after all recovering from 2 years of homelessness, multiple concussions, contusions, etc.
This is like, how conversations work, right?
If someone says something you know is false… you don’t immediately assume they are an intentional badfaith disinfo agent, you instead say hey, you said this, I think that’s incorrect, and let me tell you why.
Though I do have to point out the irony of me saying that I often encounter many psych field people who needlessly read hostile intent into what I say… and then you are here literally exemplifying that, by having a very emotionally charged reaction, while identifying yourself as being in the psych field.
Well if live America with no healthcare and add a stigma against therapy then yes I see how this happens. But even with healthcare a lot of them don’t offer this ( my job that I miss did.) But without some kind of plan then it is super expensive to talk to a therapist.
I don’t think people who are in a precarious financial situation spend their time talking to chatbots, they are probably too busy for that
And you people complain about our ignorance…
You’ve never been in a precarious financial situation in the states, then.
Now flip that around and anytime you see or a hear a woman saying her man isn’t emotionally available, just tell her he isn’t your therapist.
… Do you see how this kind of framing is wildly unproductive, when either side engages in it?
I can’t believe I’m going to have to explain this, but it’s a meme reference: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/instead-of-going-to-therapy
Yeah, memes, common jokes, can be employed for unhelpful purposes, in unhelpful ways.
You are basically saying ‘its just a joke bro!’ when its clear that a lot of people, in general, and here in this thread, are tired of this joke, as it is dismissive and reductive.
Some people would rather yalk to something they know is fake than to talk to a person who may or may not be.
I see a lot of people in this thread reacting with open hostility and derailment every time men’s issues are mentioned. Have you tried not being a part of the problem?
Allowing men’s issues to even be addressed risks giving legitimacy to the fact that these issues even exist. And if they exist, men can no longer be that evil monolith that exists only to be torn down and used as the cause for whatever is wrong with the world.
After all, the zero-sum game must be properly reinforced with an appropriate evil that cannot be allowed to have any weaknesses or redeeming attributes.
There are people like that for anything related to AI.
Combine that with men stuff and this going to be crack for all of those people
Naturally. We were beaten up and ostracized if we showed weakness when we were kids. You CAN’T be sharing your feelings like that to another human.
a lot of therapists and psychs are also useless for helping men. because they are women and they are basically only trained to deal with women’s issues and only see women’s emotional processes and processing as ‘valid’. there is this default bias that men’s emotional processing is ‘flawed’.
imo with mental health professionals all my ‘issues’ were blow way out of proportion. i only had one therapist who actaully helped me was a man and that person helped me understand that ‘not everything is your fault’. when all the other therapists/friends/family always 100% told me everything that happens to me is entirely my fault. they also told me it was normal/healthy to vent my feelings by doing productive things (like writing, exercising, relaxing), rather than viewing that as ‘not addressing the problem’.
the issue with so much of this crap is that not only does nobody want to talk to men, it’s that they don’t want to listen and/or the tell us we are ‘talking wrong’. even when we do talk to people, there is only a tiny window of acceptable things we an talk about and way we can talk about them or how selfish it is of him to vent/indulge his legitimate emotions.
a woman can burst into tears over any little thing and everyone wants to help her. a man bursts into tears over his father dying of cancer and all the sudden everyone wants to tell him his reaction is too intense and he should be thinking of how he is making other people feel.
Pretty much every guy has had someone in his life try to get him to ‘open up’ and then we he does he’s met with nothing but hostility, disappointment, and eventually rejection. We are told to shut up and never talk about it again. Never, ever is he met with acceptance or love.
This is pretty sexist.
Coping skills are not gender specific. How they help is different for each individual.
Women have their emotions unsupported just as much as men I know my mom didn’t have anyone caring about how she felt. Pretty sure that’s the stereotype of most American moms, they work all day come home cook and clean too.
I’ve never seen a man cry and be told to stop by anyone other than their own father. I’ve seen countless women be mocked for being emotional.
Sorry bro your comment is far too one sided to be taken seriously by me. Society is hard on everyone.
Yes they are. The genders are massivenly different in a lot of ways, and failure to acknowledge that is sexist.
But keep screaming that anything that disagrees with your particular narrative that women are great and perpetual victims of men and men are always bad, I guess? Because that’s not sexist, at all. lol
it couldn’t be that both men and women are people and both suffer from the same bullshit that they themselves perpetuate? nah.
The genders are massivenly different in a lot of ways
and even if you think that the psychology of genders isn’t different, society treats genders differently and this either from the therapist who reacts differently to different genders, or from the patient who expects difference the point is the same: the construct of gender forces artificial difference, even if it’s not based in real “our brains are the same” science (which they aren’t - same as our biology isn’t quite the same)
equity is different to equality, and equity is actually what is needed
and even if you think that the psychology of genders isn’t different, society treats genders differently and this either from the therapist who reacts differently to different genders, or from the patient who expects difference the point is the same: the construct of gender forces artificial difference, even if it’s not based in real “our brains are the same” science (which they aren’t - same as our biology isn’t quite the same)
amen. brother, sister, or whatever preferred identity you want to be.
more treating people as individuals, less as treating them as stereotypes
Again. Coping skills are not gender specific they’re individual specific.
Nobody is screaming. And yes women are victims of men, have you spoken to any of them about it? Because it’s rather helpful to have those conversations.
Your comment is just very one sided and that’s the side that has the most power on the planet and as a member of that side I have just as much perspective of you and I’m here to say – nah to most of what you said.
Men’s #1 issue is lack of empathy towards women, they isolate half the planet from supporting them. There’s your solution.
Men’s inability to open up is a trained behavior, and is reinforced the most by the group doing the most child care: women. Everytime a boy that cries gets told to “man up” that stereotype is repeated to them. This produces an echo that reverbs through most of society, and especially children, who then mock peers that express emotions.
Women are training their own oppressors. There is enough blame around for all genders.
No that’s ridiculous and hilarious to say. I’d agree there is enough to blame everyone but you’re not, you’re blaming women.
I’ve never been told to man up by a woman, only men. Ridiculous to say that.
Is it really that ridiculous? Biologically seen, men’s properties are mostly due to genetic selection by women over thousands of years, if they are conscious about it or not. Men that are more attractive to women are preferred partners, and the selection pressure is mostly on men, since women have a much higher biological cost in pregnancy, therefore they are much more “picky”. That is pretty proven science, and this pressure is also found in culture: men have the attributes that women want them to have to give them an advantage.
It would only take 2-3 generations of women AND men doing child care to fix those issues by reinforcing openness and acceptance, but that takes education, esp in the human sciences, and education for the masses in the US has been dismantled long ago even before the current razing.
Your comment is just very one sided and that’s the side that has the most power on the planet and as a member of that side I have just as much perspective of you and I’m here to say – nah to most of what you said.
The only ‘side’ that has power is the wealthy. But keep banging your gender war drum, it probably gives you meaning and purpose in life to collectively blame 'me’n for all the worlds ills as if anyone who has a penis or wants a penis is entirely the same.
Drink that kool aid. yum yum. Donald Trump and his buddies thank you for your vote.
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I thought it wasn’t gender specific? This is very sexist of you. wags finger
See how unhelpful that is to the conversation
The only ‘side’ that has power is the wealthy.
Pivot to wealth inequality because?
But keep banging your gender war drum, it probably gives you meaning and purpose in life to collectively blame 'me’n for all the worlds ills as if anyone who has a penis or wants a penis is entirely the same.
You are the one who made the issue about differences in sex and/or gender.
No wonder you made no progress in therapy. You’re completely obtuse.
Also, no one is blaming men for their life’s problems. That person, would need therapy. Also, please don’t speak for men as a pejorative, your views are not reflective of any kind of monolith within my sex as a class of people and continually self-victimising under the guise of speaking for men’s issues is disingenuous and pathetic.
i pivot to wealth inequality because the wealthy have all the resources and the rest of us don’t have enough.
that includes access to medical care and mental care. easiest way to get healthcare and therapy is to be rich so you can pay out of pocket and skip the limits/lines imposed by insurance companies.
a lot of people’s mental and health problems would also simple be alleviated by being able to have better food and a better work-life balance, both which are privileges of the wealthy that the less economically fortunate do not have access to.
these are straight facts, but i’m sure you’ll go into denial mode about how the poor and mentally unwell should just become their own therapists or something.
But keep screaming that anything that disagrees with your particular narrative that women are great and perpetual victims of men and men are always bad, I guess?
Incel talk
read the whole comment
I did, but your main assertion that therapists are women, women don’t understand the male perspective therefore mental healthcare for men, (like talk therapy and counseling) are ineffective. Is not just completely wrong, it is dangerous. You start talking about how gendered biases effect the outcome of therapy. Ignoring that psychology is an incredibly complex, extremely well-documented, highly diverse and well regarded field of study, That’s like saying you wouldn’t trust a female virtuoso guitarist to perform ‘Master of Puppets’ because her female perspective would bias her against playing a solo written by a man. I am a man, I have had some success in therapy and counseling. I need more work, I’ll admit. But, all of the best practitioners I have worked with have been women. If you go to counseling, with a social worker, or a master’s student in psychology, yeah that can be a bit dodgy. But the idea that a registered psychotherapist, a doctor, would not be able to provide effective treatment because women can’t understand men is absolutely petulant. It is a myth, pervaded by a lot of influential male voices online and pop-psychology. It misunderstands the whole purpose of talk therapy and then it’s mis-characterised as “giving advice” and “putting biases in your head.” When psychotherapists are literally just there to help you confront and come to terms with things that you identify are affecting your ability to live. This stupid argument is always propped up by the same idea of women not being able to understand the male perspective, goes hand-in-hand with reported instances of mental health disorders. When really, the disparity between the sexes in terms of reported mental issues, is actually because people make arguments like yours. They say “all therapists are women and women don’t understand the male perspective” and “women report higher levels of depression and anxiety, therefore mood disorders are women’s issues.” When, in fact, it is men that dominate the field of psychotherapy, psychology and psychiatry. It is also us men that are killing themselves in record numbers, it is us that drive cars into street markets, it is us that shoot into crowds of people and then turn the gun on ourselves and it is boys that go online and see men like you. Making these harmful, disingenuous, ignorant arguments that makes them believe that their mental health is unimportant and that any pain, or issue they are having difficulty with is their problem and a flaw in themselves. Which just leads to self-victimisation.
I have read your comment, I have read all of your comments in this thread and your rhetoric is not just wholly emblematic of someone who has never done any meaningful work in therapy, it is dangerous and invalidating to kids who don’t have the experience and don’t know any better. That’s why you expand your argument, from “women therapists” to the entire field, because then it goes from sexist nonsense, to a broader discussion on the existence of human bias in the field. Conveniently, then you don’t have to confront the obvious flaws in what you’re saying. Personally, I wouldn’t trust someone, who has never so much as opened a textbook on abnormal psychology, to be a great judge of the existence of gendered biases in contemporary psychological care. I swear, if more men could be brave enough to admit that we endure psychological strain and experience issues through that strain that manifest in ways that effect our lives, we wouldn’t have Trump. Roe V Wade would be codified. So many of today’s problems exist because of the stigma round men seeking professional help with their mental health. So, yes I read your whole comment, I recognise your arguments and your perspectives. I say they are categoriaclly prejudiced, unhelpful, disingenuous and dangerous. When young men see this stuff and haven’t developed a sense of identity yet, they adopt this. Because this is what they think they’re supposed to believe, because boys look to contemporary male ideas and figures to emulate what they perceive to be masculinity. That’s how you get idiots on the Internet trying to discredit what is arguably the single most needed field of medicine in the world right now. When those men face crises, in their lives and need help, where do they go? If the main medical avenue of psychotherapy is seen as weak, or feminine or ineffective. Where do they go? That’s how you normalise male loneliness and hopelessness. You make young men feel like no one can understand what they’re going through, or help them understand themselves and navigate it. That is how you get drug addicts, that is how you get alcoholics. That’s how you get radicalisation, incels, domestic terrorists and victims of suicide. So, maybe just stop with the whole injustice over the feeling of being a man whose feelings are not understood. “But therapy doesn’t work, because nobody can understand me bro” and actually go to therapy. It might help you empathise with other people’s perspectives, perhaps you could analyse why you have these uninformed beliefs about this field of healthcare.
Which you seem so impassioned about discrediting and maybe it could even help you understand why it feels like no one gets you. Why you feel this is the correct way to approach mental health issues. The effect your words have on the well-being of impressionable members of our sex and what that stigmatisation of mental health problems and empathetic emotional recognition means, for men as a whole. What it means for our feelings about our place in society. It would help all of us, a lot more, than you maligning being told to “man up” whilst also perpetuating the concept of “man up” by spreading actual lies that psychotherapy doesn’t work for men. If society’s view of male mental health is so troubling to you. Maybe, don’t regurgitate misinformation about mental health that specifically invalidates the feelings and experiences of men struggling with addiction, or trauma, or grief, or psychological disturbance? Men, who would otherwise be comfortable enough in their masculinity and strong enough emotionally, to admit they have a problem to seek out professional help. Mental healthcare is healthcare, it is not a moral failing, personal flaw, or emasculating experience. If you actually gave a shit about men’s issues you’d understand that. Instead of just, first, trying to sound above it (by being incorrect about what therapy is and largely sexist), then posturing victimhood by co-opting men’s issues and trying to make the conversation about how society disregards male feelings and how nobody gets us. Your feelings are your own and you can feel however you’d like about anything. But you don’t preface that it’s your feelings, or your opinion based on shit you have absorbed from other male figures and spaces. You say this is how it is, before saying that therapists are women who are biased against men. Which is not true and reinforces this idea that men and women are completely diametrically opposed opposites and not just humans with the same breadth of emotions and very similar psychological conditions. Bi-polar depression doesn’t care what genitals you have. Trauma effects everyone. Mental health is NOT a gendered issue. Your reasoning throughout this entire thread is deeply flawed, divisive and doesn’t even make sense. If you feel like nobody cares about men’s feelings and men’s psychological and social issues, why is your position to take away one of the only recognised avenues by which men who are suffering can have those issues validated and explore their feelings in a safe, non-judgemental way? That is what you do when you lie like that and misrepresent the purpose and efficacy of psychotherapy.
You argue for positions directly in opposition to men’s issues. It’s quite extraordinary. I doubt everything you say about your experiences with therapy, just based on how you talk about it as a gendered issue. Also, the idea that people with biases put ideas in your head. Which is genuinely, just a fallacious red-pill talking point, that completely goes against the process and purpose of talk therapy. It allows men to live in denial about their actions and feelings and also validate those insecurities because nobody understands the male position, society doesn’t care and it’s not our fault. Which is all well and good, until your misrepresentation leads to someone’s death. So, I’ll say it again.
Incel Talk
Godamn son, didn’t have to nuke him
Well put, though.
Type anything to show you’ve never been to therapy: ^ this post
Literally in therapy but okay. Continue to reject my perspective and unsupport a fellow dude. Hypocrites.
dude people here just want to dunk on men because it makes them feel good about themselves. it’s that sad, and that simple. they don’t care about having empathy for men, men are not ‘people’. they are ‘others’.
they don’t really give a shit about… the issue at hand or the issues in the therapy industry/society that systematically disenfranchise many men.
unironically they want men to ‘man up’ and ‘fix’ the problems and never acknowledge them. Because that is inconvenient for them and their viewpoints.
because to them everything is a weird power struggle for their particular disenfranchised group, and they see anyone else acknowledging anything else struggles as a detriment to their cause. they lack the big brain thought that maybe lots of people suffer in lots of different ways and that it’s not some zero-sum game about ‘who suffers the most’.
as if men’s issue with the mental health care system… don’t also apply to to various other groups. of which any one person can belong to multiples of those groups.
Who is “they” because the “they” is other men.
So why are we like mad at women in the comments it’s nonsense. Why disparage healthcare and therapy it’s nonsense.
The issue at hand is one demographic struggles to extend empathy and therefore doesn’t get it in return. Make the first step, be empathetic in your life and I swear if you respond saying you are I’m gonna laugh because no, reading your responses you’re not, you’re very “you” focused.
There’s no power struggle, and any you sense is disenfranchised groups trying to get power back from, guess who?
Who said I am a dude?
Dude is nongendered everyone is a dude, nice try tho trying to pull this though
I don’t agree
Nonsense. The idea that all psychological issues are defined by gender is just the perspective of someone who’s never made any meaningful progress through therapy and/or counseling. Mental health is not a gendered issue and the repetition of this misconception just leads more people to give up without even trying. Yes, the lens of sexual identity comes into play, mainly in terms of cultural gender roles experienced in your part of the world. But, a well trained, experienced therapist will have these considerations while exploring issues you present with. I would argue, that psychiatrists (which is an even moreso male dominated field) are much more of an issue, because their objective is not to help you come to conclusions about yourself. It is to medicate your symptoms away to allow you to function. I am sorry you did not have a good experience yourself, but that is not reflective of therapy, or counseling as a whole and your characterisation of men vs women in therapy is sexist and sounds more like male influencer talking points than lived experience.
how many well trained therapists are there out there who are totally objective, compared to poorly trained ones who will often perpetual their harmful biases?
does anyone know? how do we even measure that? do we just assume people who have a certain degree from a certain program are inherently ‘objective’?
No, but that’s not the argument you were making before. You said therapists are women, women don’t understand the male perspective, implying therapy is ineffective. Ironically, those most hostile towards mental health treatment and self-analysis are often those with the least amount of time in counseling/therapy. Often the ones that would benefit the most out of it. The goal of a therapist is not to make you feel understood, a therapist is supposed to help you understand and come to conclusions about yourself, so that you can improve your life. Everything about coming to terms with neuropathy/trauma/coping mechanisms takes work and self-discipline. Hand-waving away people’s lived experience categorically stating that mental healthcare is ineffective, based on your own (I would bet) extremely limited experience with the field. That’s a lot easier. See how you’re asking me
how many well trained therapists are there out there who are totally objective, compared to poorly trained ones who will often perpetual their harmful biases?
does anyone know? how do we even measure that? do we just assume people who have a certain degree from a certain program are inherently ‘objective’?
As if that de-legitimises any point that I have made in response to those statements? That is childish. See how when it’s your narrow perspective, you view it as reason enough to make blanket statements about therapy, women and mental healthcare as a whole? But, when I offer mine and critique yours instead of addressing the points I make, you expand the scope? To the point I have to contend with Bias over an entire field study and healthcare? That’s because your argument is weak, it’s a fallacy and it’s based on conjecture. I assure you, everyone has biases but again, therapists are there to help you come to conclusions, not give advice. The most harmful bias anyone can have is there own personal biases, which if left unchecked, allows the ego to feel secure, but stops you from growing as a person. That’s why you spaz out and attack therapy as an institution, because my drawing attention to and invalidating your biased opinion makes the ego feel threatened. That’s why you turn it from a conversation into a confrontation, because an argument you feel you can win. If you acknowledge your position is incorrect/prejudiced then that feels like a problem within the self. Which we can’t stand, because in a world of diffuse human interaction we are all the protagonist and we want people to like us. Which is an insight you would have if you had actually ever gone to therapy.
Therapy is just littered with bad therapists, that do more harm than good and give the practice a bad name.
For every 1 good therapist, there are probably 10+ bad ones.
It can be a fucking ordeal to navigate, financially and emotionally, to try and find the one good one.
My worst experience was a therapist which charged me 300 dollars a session to do nothing but talk about how amazing they were, and that I need to just suck it up and be amazing like they are, afterall, it was so easy for them.
Amen.
There is a boatload of bad therapists and bad therapy out there. And sadly it gets a lot more traction and popularity because well… it’s simplistic and easy. It’s the fast food of therapy.
Good therapy is hard and long and complex. And most people simple don’t want to deal with that. They want the diet pill version of therapy. Just make the bad feelings go away, and give me more good feelings.
I don’t think enough analogies are drawn between physical vs mental health. Anyone knows that legit physical health is a long and boring process that takes a lot of discipline and time. Mental health and wellness really isn’t any different. Therapists should also be more like physical trainers… you need to have a specific goal in mind and work towards that goal and really and the endgame should be to no longer need the physical trainer/therapist
Sadly in our economic system the incentive for a lot of people is the opposite and many bad therapist/trainers just want to generate dependency of their clients on themselves and as such they will indulge their clients worse habits to keep them hooked.
Yeah.
and there needs to be more oversight and punishment for objectively bad therapists. and I dont mean bad as in their program didnt work for you, i mean bad, like ones that spend an entire session fellating themselves over how awesome they are, or tell you that they arent here to listen to you bitch and moan about your problems (someone I knew had a therapist say that to them) or whatever other objectively awful things bad therapists too.
and there needs to be more education about therapy, and how there are many different styles and approaches… and not all work for everyone, The system should incentivize people being able to tell their therapist they appreciate their time, but it doesnt feel like their approach is working, and get refered to a different one with a different approach without drama, extra cost, extra paperwork, or headache.
yes, there is an incredibly amount of ignorance, and a lack of oversight about the entire thing.
and so many internet jackasses who think they are experts about it, constantly pushing endless misinformation about every aspect of the process. esp the armchair diagnosing.
‘oh you had a bad day at work? you must have autism/adhd/depression/personality disorder’. or the fact anyone who was ever mean to you once in your life is a ‘narcissist’ or ‘gas lighting’ you.
the bias confirmation is out of hand. even in this very comment thread… soooo many people just banging on their bias confirmation drum and screaming ‘no no no no, men are bad and should just go away and solve their own problems without bothering anyone at all ever!’ as if that attitude isn’t the biggest reason men, especially young men, feel so trapped about their lives.
From the commenter above talking about negative experiences with talking to women and female therapists, I think the real solution is that men need to be proactive about supporting each other. Ranting and raving about how women are terrible and don’t know how to help men with an undercurrent of expectations that women (especially a romantic partner) should fix everything is simply not a tenable mindset.
As a woman who works in the medical field, I am keenly aware of my limitations when it comes to helping men with mental health issues. I think the real, effective solution is for men to start opening up to each other and supporting each other the way that women tend to do among themselves. I don’t mean this as “oh, men are terrible and they need to fuck off somewhere else with their problems”, I mean it as a sincere belief that the best people to help a man through emotional or psychological problems are probably other men given the shared socialization and perspective.
we need more male therapists and teachers. that’s what we need.
we have systematically removed male teachers from the school system due to the pedophilia panic.
I am on my fifth therapist. The first one I was seeing I kinda stopped going and then he retired, then I had a GF cheat on me and that was super brutal so I started going again.
First therapist was the stereotypical “feelings are okay!” kind of therapist, second one she just automatically assumed it was my fault and was basically telling me that cause I’m a man I should have done better, and the third just immediately jumped to medication like halfway through my first session.
Ended up with my current therapist and she’s great. I really like her because she regularly tells me that I’m just straight up being stupid or ridiculous and just need to handle my shit. Which works amazing for me.
Therapy is just littered with bad therapists, that do more harm than good and give the practice a bad name.
This has long been my experience. Although I believe that great therapists are out there, I have yet to encounter someone who didn’t blame me for the problems and cause me to feel rejected. The last person I went to looked over the intake testing and told me that nobody would want me as a client. No joke. I convinced him to let me stay but nothing happened and I burned out after 3 months or so and stopped going.
I’m sorry, you don’t deserve that.
If you have the mental energy/space, there are usually state therapists boards of some kind that you can call and report that behavior too… Too few people do that, though (and I’m including myself on that list), because a lot of people who seek out therapists are in a bad, vulnerable state and just don’t have the mental space to go through with reporting these assholes like they deserved.
You can share them to fellow humans here now /c/[email protected]
Part of me is ok with this in that any avenue to get mental health resources can be better than nothing. What worries me is that people will use ChatGPT for this sort of thing and these models will not be good help.
AI will reinforce delusional thinking. This is definitely not good.
more delusional people means more people that can make good music
I’ll admit I tried talking to a local deepseek about a minor mental health issue one night when I just didn’t want to wake up/bother my friends. Broke the AI within about 6 prompts where no matter what I said it would repeat the same answer word-for-word about going for walks and eating better. Honestly, breaking the AI and laughing at it did more for my mental health than anything anyone could have said, but I’m an AI hater. I wouldn’t recommend anyone in real need use AI for mental health advice.
I’d say make a grilled cheese sandwich with quality Gruyere and Cheddar and take a nap after.
Honestly of they could program a halfway decent AI therapist then art least it could take some of the load off our already insufficient mental health professionals by dealing with the lighter-weight cases, leaving the psychotherapists free to deal with the especially sick people.
The real problem becomes when bad or non scientific advice gets regurgitated to people over and over.
So… AI.
genAI chatbots are so predatory
LLMs have no intentions. They only do what the user asks them to.
Offline it is… Online, they use it as training, and companies buy the data and trends. Both of you are right. LLMs, are just trained, they repeat patterns, but have no intent in an of itself, but companies will steer towards whatever gets them more revenue, so if an AI bro company goes for psychology, it’ll just be a repeat of BetterHelp
I think we may be (re)-discovering the appeal of monotheistic religions, and why they hew patriarchal.
On average, men desperately need more mental health resources. But, on average, they are not comfortable building that with other men, and it often isn’t appropriate or effective to lean on their female significant other (if a straight man).
So - enter the primary description of ‘God’. Can listen any time but will always forgive, is super masculine but won’t emasculate you, and has never told another soul what you are thinking.
AI is always available and is unlikely to emasculate anyone, but that third item… Well, we’ll see where this goes.
You’ve basically just described “confession”. You go into a little box designed to make it as difficult as possible for the priest to identify you, you talk about all the ways you feel like you’re a bad person, and the priest talks to you for a while about it, then gives you some actionable items to make amends and once you’ve done them God officially forgives you. The whole concept of confession is designed to allow people to let go of their regrets and live in the now. It’s actually quite clever as a bit of societal design. If modern priests had psychotherapy degrees then everyone in the world would have access to free therapy - unfortunately they wouldn’t be very useful for LGBT+ people.
Lol see where it goes? If you think these AI companies, that are very publicly bleeding money, aren’t selling your data out for pennies on the dollar, you’re just keeping your head in the sand.
I’ve been asking Google Gemini weird and stupid trivia questions just to burn the world down faster.
Omg self host it omg
Alternate title “Men so starved of sources of support they resort to talking to AI”
Edit: have started a new com for men to talk to each other instead of AI [email protected]
Or “men would rather talk to superpowered autocorrect rather than sharing their feelings with family and friends”
This response is why men feel scared and uncomfortable opening up. You are a part of the problem. For your male family members’ sake, I hope you check in on them instead of just being sexist online.
Men feel scared and uncomfortable because they’re afraid to be told they were wrong to hide their feelings?
If you really honestly don’t understand why what you said was horrible I’m willing to have a conversation with you if you want to DM me to talk about it. For starters, men feel scared and uncomfortable because their serious problems will get made light of just like you did. Or told to “man up”. Which I imagine was on the tip of your tongue
Have you ever considered not being like this?
probably not but that’s because sexism against men is normalized and you’re not allowed to talk about it unless you’re a neonazi for some reason.
side note, this is exactly why the “young broccoli haired boy to fascist brownshirt” pipeline exists. they have real and genuine issues and instead of getting any sort of community or support virtually every facet of society is telling them their issues are fake and that they are destined to be monsters. then someone like j peterson comes along and tells them “life isn’t so bad, it’s okay, just clean your room and be disciplined, it’ll all start to look up soon champ… and uh… also hate the gays, black people, and other minorities - they’re the woke mob that left you abandoned like this!” people making shocked pikachu face at young men being hardcore MAGAts are so sorely out of touch with what being a man is like and the kinds of trauma that can stem from the male experience. it’s obvious to most of us why this issue exists, i hope. this comment chain is a great example. if you even touch the topic you get barraged with people telling you to essentially shut the fuck up and stop entertaining the idea that men are possibly people too and not some root of all fucking evil in the world.
the amount of literal hate I see towards men in casual discourse is insane. can say the most psychotic shit in most circles nowadays but if you point your malice at the “right kinds” of people most won’t even bat an eye. see people frequently talking about doing unhinged shit to others solely because they are a man or [insert other group they don’t like generally for some stupid fucking reason] and there is a preconceived slight, danger, or aggression. leftists think they’re better people morally but we’re really not. i have seen the exact same bullshit bigotry promulgate every community i know of in the past few years. the same brainrot the conservatives have had since the tea partiers has infiltrated our spaces too. everyone genuinely is dumb, angry, and hateful now.
I am not wholly convinced that our culture being the target of multiple astroturfing campaigns hasn’t degraded people’s capability for nuance, compassion, empathy, and ontology.
I’m here to talk if you need an ear man, I understand you and it sounds like you’ve been through your own personal brand of shit
Edit: Made a com where you can talk more freely without judgement /c/[email protected]
appreciate the offer king. i might check in and occasionally participate in the comm, i like the idea.
my main concern is ensuring there isn’t a weird invasion of the space by neofascists. that’s the main issue with men’s rights spaces currently. it doesn’t seem easy to prevent as every such space i come across has this problem. the exact thing we identify as hating here pervades spaces trying to tackle this problem… something of a catch 22.
i fucking adore the naming, tho. reprieve is exactly what we all need. i think you should really lean into the abandonment of identity and related identity politics for this community. it shouldn’t be about men in particular, it’s about a reprieve from this shitty contemporary world we have grown up into. after all, race or sex or whatever aren’t even real… they’re just arbitrary lines that cultures draw upon the world. important to individuals maybe, yes, but i’ve always felt it to be something of an albatross around the left’s neck. not all right-wing criticisms of “identity politics” are necessarily unwarranted… (😬 oopsie i broke the groupthink too hard that time guys o nooooos 🙈)
.
amen to all this. i really started removing ‘leftists’ people from my life and it was like… so much better because so much of their entity message is just this weird revenge/hate pron against straight white men, and men in general. when ironically, the people they should be angry at are the wealthy… but honestly most of these ‘leftists’ I’ve known were trust fund kids… so that tells you right there why they would never rag on the wealthy…
normal well adjusted people don’t hate anyone or blame anyone for their problems. but for some reason it’s become mainstream A-OK to say horrible awful shit about men that would you get you banned/shitcanned/ostracized if you said ti about anyone else. esp in liberal/left groupthink.
it’s entire the same discourse as neoNazis and all that too… just replace jew/black with white straight men.
this sort of stuff gets downvoted incessantly in leftist spaces which is a damn shame bc i feel like a lot of these places are my home to a certain degree. it makes me feel unwelcome. ik that’s like, the fucking point and why they do it but still.
these sorts of people are just on some weird, misguided, revanchist agenda that necessitates getting “revenge” on certain groups of people instead of sticking with the core principles of the ideology which clearly state that you should kindly refrain from being an asshole. there is nothing to be gained from exacting some revenge fantasy upon straight white men. you’re exactly right, the only people who deserve to have shit flung their way over who they are is the rich and powerful.
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yeah they are definitely making dumb choices. it’s probably not because they’re all just dumb though. they probably have a lot of external factors pushing them towards that decision.
for example, many discussions tend to find ways to blame and shame them instead of responding with empathy. sort of like this comment. what benefit do you think you get by reframing things to blame the men here?
Have you considered the fact that most of the time, even when people “want to hear mens issues”, they reject them and tell them to man up? Maybe “superpowered autocorrect” could be a vector to nourish this severe lack of openness?
Personally I use AI for this purpose, mostly because it accepts me for who I am and provides genuine advice that has actually helped me improve my life, rather than the people around me saying that I should “put more effort into things”, or “it’s just in your head”.
It’s not “lone wolfing” to stop telling the people who’ve rejected your concerns about your feelings and issues, it’s just the act of not wasting time on those who don’t care.
