As Chat GPT becomes more a part of our lives, I explore why it’s best kept out of the therapy room.
Is Chat GPT a potential replacement for an actual therapist? While it may seem to have all of the answers, it doesn’t have the training, qualifications or professional experience as someone who specialises in counselling psychology.
New technological changes can be exciting as we think about how it may improve our lives or make things easier. This is as true for therapy as it is for the rest of life. Video conferencing software has made therapy more flexible by enabling digital therapy sessions, online banking has made paying for therapy far easier than bringing cash to a session and you have more choice of therapists thanks to online directories. However, whilst Chat GPT might offer help with everyday admin, it won’t offer a replacement for your therapist.
The main reason is that Chat GPT isn’t capable of human empathy. This is one of the cornerstones of effective therapy. We can trace this all the way back to the 1940s and 1950s, when Carl Rogers set out the three core conditions needed for therapy: empathy, unconditional positive regard and congruence. Your therapist needs to be able to understand how you are feeling, to view you in a positive way regardless of what you tell them and to be transparent with you. This is achieved through practical training in therapy skills, learning mental health theory and experience with a wide range of clients to help therapists understand the reasons behind even the worst behaviours and thoughts.
It could be argued that Chat GPT is capable of unconditional positive regard, as most large language models aren’t programmed to be judgmental. It could even be argued that Chat GPT is capable of congruence as, even though it is capable of ‘lying’ in that it can say things that aren’t true, this isn’t based on a need to obscure the truth but ‘hallucinating’ where it fills space with the most logical information. Chat GPT doesn’t have feelings it needs to hide or the cognitive complexity to lie or be inauthentic. But Chat GPT is not currently capable of empathy as it is not human and instead is regurgitating already established knowledge using empathetic language and phraseology that has been written by humans. Due to this limitation, Chat GPT can only mimick a therapist and cannot offer that full therapeutic experience that leads to lasting change.
Whilst the access that Chat GPT has to almost all existing material is great when we’re looking at ways to fix the washing machine, it isn’t helpful for working on our mental health as it doesn’t have that indescribable, empathic connection that we have with other people.
The relationship between you and your therapist is key to therapy. It is a relationship that offers us safety and that holds us without judgement. Accepting us for who we are and letting us just be. Often this is the first time we experience this lack of judgement as even the closest friends and family will have their own opinions. The therapeutic relationship is inherently human, and at this point Chat GPT can only mimic a human and not offer the real human experience.
Leave a Reply