{"id":328316,"date":"2025-08-08T16:31:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T16:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/328316\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T16:31:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T16:31:12","slug":"how-therapy-culture-led-to-therapy-bots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/328316\/","title":{"rendered":"How Therapy Culture Led to Therapy Bots"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Millions of people worldwide are <a href=\"https:\/\/sentio.org\/ai-blog\/ai-survey?ref=compactmag.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">turning<\/a> to LLMs (large language models) like ChatGPT for mental health support. In response, a recent flurry of warnings has emerged about the risks of opting to do so. Going to ChatGPT with your problems can \u201cunintentionally reinforce unhelpful behaviors, especially for people with anxiety, OCD, or trauma-related issues,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2025\/aug\/03\/generative-ai-chatbot-therapy-dangers-risks?ref=compactmag.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">warns<\/a> one psychologist in The Guardian. LLMs can show bias, stigma, and reinforce harmful stereotypes, <a href=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/2025\/06\/01\/ai-therapy-chatgpt-characterai-psychology-psychiatry\/?ref=compactmag.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">alleges<\/a> another report in Fortune. Others raise a more resounding alarm. \u201cChatGPT is pushing people towards mania, psychosis and death,\u201d declared a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/tech\/chatgpt-ai-therapy-chatbot-psychosis-mental-health-b2797487.html?ref=compactmag.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">recent<\/a> headline in The Independent.<\/p>\n<p>According to The Times, by March of this year there were nearly 16.7 million <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.com\/uk\/healthcare\/article\/young-people-using-chatgpt-therapy-nhs-waiting-lists-sxjp9b6hj?ref=compactmag.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">posts<\/a> on TikTok about using ChatGPT as a therapist. Members of the therapeutic professions are not wrong to worry about the rise of LLMs as therapists. But what\u2019s missing from this handwringing is the complicity of these same therapeutic professionals in creating this situation. They\u2019ve made the therapy couch we all now have to lie on.<\/p>\n<p>            Become a member to continue reading this article.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\">Unlimited access to all articles for <\/p>\n<p>        $9 per month<br \/>\n        or $90 per year<\/p>\n<p>                Get the best of Compact right in your inbox.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-8 text-lg font-normal tracking-normal leading-none text-black\">\n                Sign up for our free newsletter today.\n            <\/p>\n<p>                    Sign up<\/p>\n<p>Great! Check your inbox and click the link.<\/p>\n<p>\n                    Sorry, something went wrong. Please try again.\n                <\/p>\n<p>    Related Articles<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Millions of people worldwide are turning to LLMs (large language models) like ChatGPT for mental health support. In&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328317,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4317],"tags":[105,218,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-328316","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114994104634735319","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}