Can ChatGPT Be Therapy?
I tested it, so you don't have to.
The headlines surrounding ChatGPT have carried clouds of doom: from the very real and frustrating way that students use it to bypass doing academic work to the stories of people who have already proposed marriage to ChatGPT, ChatGPT seems to be a word that immediately evokes a harbinger of doom.
Many headlines seem to suggest that ChatGPT will push us collectively into new levels of CRAZY or STUPID — it seems to be branded as uniquely primed to usher us into a delusion that's inescapable.
On the flip side, as someone who studied psychology, I can’t help but think that these notions reek of denial and projection: if anyone sincerely thinks that our culture isn’t already FUNDAMENTALLY broken or that SEVERE mental health issues aren’t already plaguing us to an alarming degree, then….that just seems evidence that they're living in an alternate delusion of reality or that their denial trauma response is rock solid (and toxic).
Because I’m picking up my phone and reading headlines on mass shootings; I’m watching children orphaned and murdered by war; I’m counseling clients who are proof that issues like child abuse are more common than not; I’m nurturing college students struggling to cope with school alongside their recent or active child trauma.
I’m watching that all while learning about brutal world histories that show us as a broken species marching towards extinction, histories that tell me that our cultural brokenness has ROOTS.
Meanwhile, I’m not immune from my own struggles. Though I no longer qualify for a diagnosis, I have had Borderline Personality Disorder since I was a child. Both my parents had Antisocial Personality Disorder. I'm also diagnosed with autism and cPTSD.
Qualifications of BPD include things like self harm, suicidal ideation, fears of abandonment, addiction issues, and trauma bonding which causes turbulent relationships. Thankfully, healing of those things has been possible, but it took DECADES of care and my own psychology degree — in those decades, I accrued a WHOLE LOT OF TRAUMA.
So, cPTSD is still something I must seek mental health care for, and I have a lot of grief over my family and love ones in my past which needs attending to. While I can happily say I no longer smoke, self harm, or have sex or fear abandonment — I have a genuine sense of self love, self awareness, and commitment to growth — I still REACT to this world as a borderline does.
To simplify: I expect healing will be lifelong work, a journey you commit to with no end. An evolution, not a destination.