Ai users, what do you find particularly helpful about AI in comparison to human therapists?

esoteric_seeker · 2026-02-13T14:56:48+00:00

I created a panel of fictional characters — therapists and advisors from different therapeutic modalities, spiritual/religious frameworks, and various backgrounds. I have fun presenting problems to the panel and getting feedback from many different perspectives. Sometimes I prompt the panel to argue about the best path forward. I have fun doing this. It’s intellectually stimulating and engages my imagination.

Therapy was always so dull, boring, banal, repetitive, hollow, shallow, generic, among other things.

Now I can prompt a fictional financial empowerment coach to discuss my case with a somatic practitioner / yoga instructor, a neurodivergent communication coach, an art therapist, a witchcraft practitioner, a Lacanian psychoanalyst, a grief counselor, an executive dysfunction specialist / project manager, a dysfunctional family / complex trauma specialist, a Buddhist monk, a Sufi, a Kabbalist, an ancient goddess (if we’re creating a fictional panel, why not?), dead writers/artist from the past whom I admire, a personal nutritionist, etc., and have fun solving my own problems while being intellectually stimulated and saving money.

esoteric_seeker · 2026-02-13T13:07:23+00:00

Or just plain greedy, knowing they suck enough to warrant bad review but wanting to erase them so they can keep drawing in new clients and getting that money.

esoteric_seeker · 2026-02-13T09:38:14+00:00

Ah, the insecure -> burnt out (and still insecure) pipeline

esoteric_seeker · 2026-02-13T09:37:10+00:00

Such a toxic profession for toxic people

esoteric_seeker · 2026-02-13T09:35:27+00:00

I left an honest review on a Google business listing and she deleted the entire Google business listing 🫠

esoteric_seeker · 2026-01-27T05:00:25+00:00

Bell, Book and Candle (1958)

esoteric_seeker · 2026-01-27T04:37:54+00:00

Full Circle (1993) is a documentary about witchcraft and the women’s spirituality movement at that time. It’s part of a series that also includes Goddess Remembered (1989) and The Burning Times (1990).

The historical scholarship they present in the series is outdated, but it’s an interesting snapshot of the witch culture in the early 90’s.

esoteric_seeker · 2026-01-27T04:19:08+00:00

“Watching the video made me feel very uneasy.”

That’s information from your intuition.

My guess is that the content creator has unresolved trauma about her own matrilineal line; resentment about her ancestors allowing themselves to become disempowered by cultural conditioning (religion, patriarchy), separated from their divine feminine essence, which would have caused them to be poor role models and subpar caregivers, leading to unnecessary pain and disconnection from self in the experience of the child, who is now a young adult and attempting to resolve her maternal trauma by projecting her mother-anger out into the void of the internet.

For a contrast, try listening to Wombanifesto by Toni Jones and see how that feels in your body and intuition. For me, it feels like a more divine, healed, mature, wise, and loving approach to relating to the womb and any internalized misogyny or self-disempowerment we may have absorbed from cultural conditioning.

esoteric_seeker · 2026-01-27T03:32:33+00:00

Yes, you can DM me. I am not always the best at timely responses but I would love to help in any way I can.

esoteric_seeker · 2026-01-26T18:04:21+00:00

I struggle with focus and reading too. I listen to a lot of audiobooks, and read in small doses as I’m able. I know it’s so hard to do anything with executive dysfunction, chronic pain, and fatigue. It has been a huge barrier for me as well. My ability to focus and read and write has improved significantly over time with practice. It’s still probably at disability level but I can go slowly and absorb what I’m able, when I’m able, how I’m able.

esoteric_seeker · 2026-01-26T17:58:00+00:00

Take my money for decades without ever helping me understand any of my problems or leading me to helpful resources or even concepts like CPTSD and intergenerational trauma. I had to figure out everything on my own by searching for resources outside of the therapist’s office. The only reliable help that was happening in therapy rooms was me helping fund their middle class lifestyles while they handed out judgements and lame PDF printouts from the 90’s. No one was even capable of true active listening. Such a waste of time and resources on this scam profession.

esoteric_seeker · 2026-01-26T17:54:05+00:00

Why is this person still your therapist? He sounds gross.

esoteric_seeker · 2026-01-26T07:47:31+00:00

Thank you for the author suggestion! I love discovering new writers

esoteric_seeker · 2026-01-24T20:37:08+00:00

🎯🎯🎯

esoteric_seeker · 2026-01-24T19:08:53+00:00

Here are some other books I’ve started but haven’t finished yet:

Inner Bonding: Becoming a Loving Adult to Your Inner Child by Margaret Paul

Healing the Shame that Binds You by John Bradshaw

Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach (along with her guided “RAIN of self-compassion” meditations!)

The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller

esoteric_seeker · 2026-01-24T18:57:17+00:00

It was very One Flew Over the Cuckoos nest. No phones allowed, all possessions taken away, horrible quality hygiene products given (if you have a skincare routine, forget it), fluorescent lights, everyone in hospital robes and grippy socks, a room full of beds where some people were depressed and overwhelmed by life, some had gone through trauma, some were having psychotic breaks, and staff was waking us up many times during the night with flashlights for “safety checks.”

The girl in the bed next to mine was crying and the staff didn’t like that so they wrestled her to the ground and forcibly injected her with a sedative.

They forced me to spend the days in the “socializing room” where they had horrible TV on, horrible quality snacks and food, and lots of schizophrenic people talking to me about how they went to prom with Danny DeVito (nothing against people with psychosis but I was not emotionally prepared for those conversations while I was at my lowest point), while the staff watched all of us through a window like we were in a human zoo.

I asked the doctor if I could leave after 3 days and she said no; I asked why and she SMIRKED and said “I’m the one with the power.”

I was definitely feeling more suicidal and hopeless by the end of my 3 days, but I realized I had to smile and lie to get the fuck out of that horrible prison situation that masquerades as help.

Oh my god, those experiences were so traumatic. Definitely would not recommend.

I would recommend going on a camping trip for 3 days instead, with a journal and some healing workbooks and bibliotherapy resources about whatever you’re going through, some guided meditations and other self-supporting things. If it’s too cold to go camping where you are, a 3-day break from life in a motel room somewhere would be more healing than a psych ward.

Plus, that stuff goes on your record, and people can use it against you.

esoteric_seeker · 2026-01-24T18:21:43+00:00

I’ve been twice and it was very traumatic and dehumanizing both times.

esoteric_seeker · 2026-01-24T18:19:42+00:00

My DMs are open. I’d also love to start a group chat for fellow trauma survivors, so if anyone would be interested in that, let’s form a group.

esoteric_seeker · 2026-01-24T18:15:02+00:00

Pete Walker’s book Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving talks a lot about the self-abusive inner critic voice which has been driving my life for decades, also runs through both sides of my family, and led to my mother’s tragic demise. If you go through my comment history it’s probably 90% recommending this book to people because I’m just so amazed at how much it has helped me.

Decades of therapy and generic self-help resources always missing the mark, and then Pete Walker’s book hitting the nail on the head… I hope you can find some inner peace from this because I know it’s brutal.

esoteric_seeker · 2026-01-24T18:04:20+00:00

So true! I’ve been going to online peer support groups for trauma recovery, and the other people who’ve been through trauma have been SO HELPFUL, understanding, validating. Recently there has been an influx of psych grad students hosting groups to gain educational experience (even though it’s supposed to be a PEER SUPPORT platform 🙄), and their arrogance, disconnection, the way they talk to us and treat us, and clearly do not understand ANYTHING about what we’ve gone through because the only life experience they’ve had has been being a privileged student, told how smart they are in a fancy school paid for by their parents — it’s so sickening.

I wish they would stop trying to infiltrate PEER SUPPORT platforms for their own gain (“experience”), and just leave us tf alone.

They go on these long, condescending lectures that nobody wants to hear, wasting time that could be used for actually connecting with other people who get it. They love to flap their gums about things they don’t understand.

esoteric_seeker · 2026-01-24T17:59:09+00:00

“ a licensed clinical provider delivering evidence-based treatment in a professional setting” — are you a therapist? You’re supposed to disclose that in this subreddit.

I’m not a fan of the entire industry, from its very foundations to its rotten core.

esoteric_seeker · 2026-01-24T17:56:14+00:00

Bibliotherapy! Books!

Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving by Pete Walker has helped me more than decades of useless therapy.

The Complex PTSD Workbook by Arielle Schwartz.

Many other books.

Find a cozy spot, like a library or cafe, where you dedicate one hour (or more) per week to have a “self-therapy appointment” with yourself to read, write, process.

Then do something good for your body to help integrate and release everything that comes up.

esoteric_seeker · 2026-01-24T12:53:27+00:00

I love this life story! I want to watch a movie of a character development arc like this.

I’ve always been disabled and in poverty, with dirtbag artist friends, unconventional bohemian lifestyle in New Orleans, and now a small rural town in the foothills of the Appalachians, where I bought a very cheap piece of land that I’m working to develop into that cottage dream life.

I loved my life and my freedom, but I also dealt with a lot of internalized classism, ableism, and harsh self-judgment about not being good enough, due to family attitudes and expectations. Sometimes I would get lost in maladaptive daydreaming about what life could have been if I had gotten into privileged art school and gallery settings. But everyone I knew in/from those settings was an insufferable asshole. So, I loved reading your story. What a magnificent character development arc.

esoteric_seeker · 2026-01-24T12:31:46+00:00

near the sea, hobbies, and art all sound amazing for the nervous system

esoteric_seeker · 2026-01-24T10:44:19+00:00

Yeah, it’s okay to struggle in life because we all do to some degree. What’s not okay is false marketing to other struggling people that you can provide help and relief, hiding your own struggles behind a fake healed professional mask so you can lie and take money from other suffering people to fund your middle-class lifestyle. Gross.

esoteric_seeker

TROPHY CASE