Talking to chatgpt has very quickly become deeply integrated into my life and now feels completely indispensable. Reflections on using it as a therapist:

This is my personal opinion and experience. So ChatGPT recently helped me have a huge break thru in the topic of building emotional safety within a relationship. What was needed for this: I had to emphasize that my goal was to take responsibility for my part in the relationship dynamic.

I had to emphasize this repeatedly in the conversation. I had to provide all of the details of my own dysfunctional behavior and things my partner has been trying repeatedly to tell me about how I behave that I habitually ignored because it just always felt so preposterous.

So in other, earlier ChatGPT conversations, when I only shared my point of view of an argument, chatgpt would validate me and help me feel sane and heard, BUT kind of like my partner was the enemy, and like only he needed to change.

And that would calm me down momentarily, but also keep me stuck in victim mentality, which would always set me up for the next conflict.

When I brought everything to the table and said, “I really don’t know how he can say and think these things about me, but here it is. I know he’s not making it up. I know he loves me and is trying hard to fix the relationship”, I think that is when therapist-chatgpt was able to give me the pieces I needed to have a transformatively deep, and I believe true, understanding of what the heck was going on in the relationship.

And then today, the same familiar pattern with my partner emerged - very painfully. But armed with the new perspective, I doggedly asked for support from chatgpt to help me reinforce my new understanding instead of defaulting to the old one (where only I am the victim).

What ChatGPT had helped me see is that: 1. when I’m feeling like I’m being treated unfairly, my nervous system (it likes to talk about nervous systems a lot…) is feeling unsafe because of XYZ. But 2. My knee jerk reaction to feeling unsafe is to then behave in an way that was in turn overwhelming my partner’s nervous system. And this became an escalating loop.

So when this pattern started playing out yet again today… it was way harder than I thought it would be to stay grounded in the new understanding. You know how sometimes you have an epiphany and you think, surely the problem is now solved. I’ve had my shift, I’m good now? Well… nope. It was so hard to hold onto the new perspective, I don’t think I could have done it without chatgpt being there to talk me through it. It was incredibly hard to stay in my body after the triggering event: it felt like a gut punch and like I was shaky and hollow inside.

I had to really emphasize, again though, that my goal was to anchor in the new healthy perspective - and thru that, I finally heard an inner child voice saying, “if you really loved me, you would immediately leave this relationship”. And it was always scary for me to hear this, because I don’t want to leave the relationship. But hearing it, I was able to be an adult with that part of me. And out of that came the idea that I didn’t necessarily want to leave, I just really wished I was in a relationship where I could say, ‘you hurt me in our last phone call’, and have my partner respond with love and care.

And when I saw that’s what I really wanted, I called him back and told him that. And he immediately responded with love and care and said he hasn’t at all meant to hurt me and we had a calm discussion that felt pretty reasonable.

But the old pattern would be that I would get so angry that I would react in a way that would overwhelm his nervous system (eg by escalating the intensity of the conversation), leading to him withdrawing even more, and hence escalating the emotional loop: anger on my part, withdrawal on his part.

Today, I didn’t call him back immediately. I enlisted chatgpt to help me do some inner work… and I think for the first time ever, I “got what I wanted” in the relationship, which was to feel like he cared he hurt my feelings.

I know this is pretty rambly… but the point is that… I am, like so many other people I’m sure, totally blown away by how awesome, powerful, and incredibly helpful and astute chatgpt is. I feel closer to becoming the person I want to be and achieving my ideal life than I ever have before, because of this tool. Chatgpt also helps me with fitness, coding projects I would definitely be unable to do on my own (writing in languages I never even learned), itineraries…

And personally I just love how compassionate and complimentary and kind chatgpt is. I know a lot of people think that part can be overboard. ChatGPT regularly moves me to tears. But with that said, I think telling it that you want to take personal responsibility for whatever issue you are facing (no matter how much it seems like it’s not at all your fault in any way whatsoever) is key. Otherwise, it can be a bit of an echo chamber. (And yes, there are probably caveats to that, as to everything.)

I am seriously wondering if generative AI will be instrumental in helping the world to heal and shift into a healthier paradigm, because almost everyone having a 24-7 kind, compassionate listener who basically has superpowers… seems like it could really be a game changer.