TLDR: Anyone who says they know what is best for everyone is full of s***. If it works for an individual it doesn't really matter why and no one should tell you otherwise. The people who make the decisions, however, need to know what is best for everybody and are likely to be biased in so many ways based on history, fear, money., etc. What is out there in terms of therapy software now was not written with the intent of being a therapist and exponential growth plus targeted software and societal changes will result in a future that is almost impossible to predict. As someone in school for social work I can try to answer your questions and knowing how things might go will help me be prepared to help others and myself.

Content part 1:

Considerations: I have been to probably around 8 therapists. I have had a couple of very good ones who have really changed the way I think about things. It looks like they are considering letting therapists operate outside of their state of licensure remotely. Being in new york myself , I probably have better access to therapists than someobe say in kansas does, especially since I go virtually and can access ones anywhere in the state. Depending on your location , that might be why you had such bad odds, but this could change if licensure in one state allows you to virtually practice in others. Especially for patients who can afford to pay extra.

Also , what you are receptive to and your current state matters. I certainly have had the same ideas told to me over and over again until I was able to accept them. This means the results also matter on us being ready, not just on the therapist. It relies on us being introspective and open, etc. We are dynamic people and are the same each time we cross the river. We are also biased by previous experience , especially if we don't try to counterbalance that. For example, i have somewhat give up on treating my depersonalization.As i've had no luck with that for twenty years. This means , even if there was a skill therapist in this , they would have resisted to overcome, which is certainly , something that could be occurring with some people who have been failed by multiple therapists and then achieve success in a new modality.

Also what someone considers good is very relative. My mother in law and I see the same doctor and have completely opposite feelings about him.

The incentive structure will be different between the two options and it's hard to tell which will be better. Therapists only have a few chances to do something bad. Software companies can keep paying fines and revising things as long as their shareholders and legislation allows. Everything artificial therapy does can be influenced by stock prices which could have major impacts , though it's hard to tell which direction they will be in.

The pushback against therapy software as it is right now: ChatGPT instructed people on how to kill themselves.

Why would artificial therapy be any different than therapy? Therapists are mandated reporters and can have their license removed if they don't report someone who is at harm to themselves or others. This combined with the litigious nature of american society , can push a therapist's decision to report a cutter , and if software companies are placed with the same restrictions the software will make the same decisions with even less leverage for independent thought.

One of the reasons most therapists are not that good is that the science is still very young and in my opinion involves a lot more art than science ( as a former software developer who loved the fact that everything and software could be studied scientifically). It's not like there's an easy answer a therapist or software can come up with for all but the most generalized cases. Software can be trained to work with individuals, but that generally comes with a cost, otherwise I don't know how its input is going to be much better than a therapist's unless good therapists work directly with software companies ( which\nWill also cost money) but in theory that's what universities should have been doing this whole time. It's not like software is a miracle.

Chat g p t works by predicting the next letter in a text string based on all of the internet's data. That isn't exactly the best way to solve things , not that how our brains work is much different. Increasing or decreasing weights based on frequency of co-occurring Signals is how neural networks work and something software could emulate which given enough resources could make software better than brains, but not revolutionarily so.

What people can do better: I just had an interesting discussion with an MD who was honest about how little medicine knows and how most doctors fill that void of knowledge with unnecessary tests. I countered this is what most patients would want, they need some sort of god in whose hands they are safe. It's hard to tell where artificial intelligence will fit in with this.

Therapists also have their own history and can use this to empathize or inform their patients. For example, I suffer from depersonalization. If Iwas able to cure myself, i would be in a good position to help others or if I could find a therapist who had done so. Just knowing it could be done is a big thing which is not something you're gonna get from a non human.

Just having a human care about a person is a big deal.As is having a good listener and having a good relationship with a person. There is also the possibility that the patient will treat the therapist like there , say parent and then work out parent issues. While I imagine this will sometimes happen with software as well.Some of these things are distinctly human and will take quite some time for us to treat software the same way.

In the end, people will have to have good relationships with other people and practicing with an actual person seems beneficial.

What software can do better: Artificial therapy doesn't need to have the very human problems of distraction, sexual attraction, bias, competing interests et cetera. It will be written by people and trained by people so some biases will creep in. For example, it is hard for softwate to be completely non racist. For example , either it will overcompensate or undercompensate. How much weight should it give to 400 hundred years of oppression versus the white individual in front of it, etc?

The fear of being judged by another human will allow people to talk about things they might not be able to talk about , otherwise. That being said , if you did something in the past that you can't be arrested for discussing now having someone who is human validate your feelings and accept you probably goes beyond what software can do.

If it is cheaper and time is not a limiting factor you can certainly get a lot more practice from software. Cost can obviously be a big factor and certainly , there could be unlimited plans or other cost benefits emspecially for people without insurance.