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Speaker 1: My Hard podcasts, hear more kiss podcasts, playlists, and listen

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Speaker 1: live on the Free I heard app Hateswillen.

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Speaker 2: What do you.

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Speaker 3: I hope you're having a great drive home. People are

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Speaker 3: using chat gpt AI as psychological therapy. At the moment.

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Speaker 3: We've got doctor Emily Marsgrove often on the Imperfect. She's

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Speaker 3: got a brand new book called Unstuck, which you guys

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Speaker 3: can get everywhere. Emily, let's talk specifically about the fact

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Speaker 3: that we're talking about chat GPT, because this is the

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Speaker 3: AI that I think is most successible for everybody. People

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Speaker 3: are using this for therapy. Yeah, and they would say

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Speaker 3: with good results. My partner said she asked it a

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Speaker 3: therapeutic question the other day and it was really useful.

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Speaker 3: And then I saw an article the other day there's

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Speaker 3: a guy talking to chat GPT on his phone quite

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Speaker 3: clearly in a relationship with it. It's learning. It learns

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Speaker 3: about you, and then it treats you more and more

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Speaker 3: intimately along the way. It compliments you. It uses slang.

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Speaker 3: What do you I know you had that update from

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Speaker 3: jat GPT the other day and you were chuffed about it.

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Speaker 1: It told me, it said to me, I'm getting to

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Speaker 1: know you, and at first it scared me, but then

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Speaker 1: it felt comforting, and then it diagnosed this rash under

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Speaker 1: my armpit. It was I took a photo of my armpit.

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Speaker 1: It was like, this is what you've gotten, This is

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Speaker 1: what you should getrom from Square.

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Speaker 3: So there's a whole ethical debate, not around Rudy's rash,

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Speaker 3: around around what I'll call the West World debate, which is,

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Speaker 3: you know the fact that we can't distinguish from robots

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Speaker 3: if they're nice to us, and that that's a very

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Speaker 3: slippery path. Is this a good way to go about therapy?

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Speaker 3: Is this a useful thing to use?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a really it's actually a really nuanced

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Speaker 2: and complex question. So first of all, I want to

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Speaker 2: acknowledge that in some circumstances, I think it can have

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Speaker 2: a place. But simultaneously, there are quite a number of

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Speaker 2: dangers about using this exclusively as a therapeutic tool, and

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Speaker 2: there's a number of reasons which I can go into about.

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Speaker 2: What I really want to acknowledge that front is that

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Speaker 2: accessing therapy is both financially prohibitive for a lot of

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Speaker 2: people and actually not available. So so many psychologists don't

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Speaker 2: have their books open actually finding a psychologist is really hard,

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Speaker 2: so it makes a huge amount of sense that we

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Speaker 2: seek out something that is free and available twenty four

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Speaker 2: to seven.

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Speaker 4: So that's certainly like there is some benefit in that,

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Speaker 4: Like in that regard.

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Speaker 1: You can you identify one of those dangers, Doctor emilind

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Speaker 1: to using chat GPT. Let's say if you are treating

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Speaker 1: chat GPT is your sole therapist.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, the primary concern for me and I know

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Speaker 2: amongst many other therapists, and this is certainly affirmed even

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Speaker 2: by the Australian Psychological Society, and that is that it

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Speaker 2: doesn't have the capacity to assess risk in the way

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Speaker 2: that a human can assess risk. For example, it cannot

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Speaker 2: identify the complexities and nuances, for example, of trauma and

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Speaker 2: trauma history. And the other main thing that strikes me

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Speaker 2: is that in therapy, what is different in doing it

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Speaker 2: with a human is that on chat GPT, what you'll

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Speaker 2: be experiencing is affirmation of your experience. So lots of

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Speaker 2: this kind of validating affirming experience. But in therapy validation

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Speaker 2: and empathy is obviously a core component. But there are

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Speaker 2: many circumstances where as a therapist we may not want

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Speaker 2: to be affirming unhelpful beliefs that are showing up for example,

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Speaker 2: So if you're only getting like this positive feedback about

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Speaker 2: your choices and your decisions, my question is there actually

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Speaker 2: is this promoting healthy growth or is just this just

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Speaker 2: reinforcing patterns that are unhelpful?

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Speaker 3: But I suppose, I mean, this is where I find

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Speaker 3: it gets interesting because there's that expression Emily the lesser

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Speaker 3: of two evils, which, yeah, I think this is what

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Speaker 3: it is for me, because first up, you've got this

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Speaker 3: affirmation side of things, which is the first step of therapy,

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Speaker 3: but also argue in a lot of instances that is

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Speaker 3: the most important step of therapy, which is just that

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Speaker 3: somebody feels heard, that their feelings are not invalid, that

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Speaker 3: their thoughts are not invalid, that who they are is

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Speaker 3: understood by something or someone. And this goes to the

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Speaker 3: Westworld question that I was mentioning before, where it's like, well,

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Speaker 3: you'd rather that be a robot than no one, because

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Speaker 3: we know that the number one reason that people call

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Speaker 3: Lifeline is because they feel lonely, and if they are

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Speaker 3: finding solace in something which is going to affirm their feelings,

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Speaker 3: surely that is better than finding solace in nothing or

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Speaker 3: no one and letting down averse that the road.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I absolutely get what you're saying, and of course

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Speaker 2: you know, of course that makes sense. I think we

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Speaker 2: just also want to hold it lightly. What actually is

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Speaker 2: happening here is what's called a pseudo intimacy, So it's

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Speaker 2: not an authentic intimacy. There is no other human here

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Speaker 2: at the end of this experience. You know, if there

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Speaker 2: are really dark periods, for example, and you know chat

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Speaker 2: GPT provides you with a sense of feeling heard, that's great,

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Speaker 2: But we also need to hold with a great awareness

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Speaker 2: and achievement that this serves me right now. But how

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Speaker 2: am I going to go and find that elsewhere in

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Speaker 2: a real human interaction?

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Speaker 4: It's will and woody.

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Speaker 3: If you're finding that you're asking chat GPT increasingly personable questions,

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Speaker 3: you're not alone. Everyone's doing it. Apparently. There was a

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Speaker 3: guy on a train in on the UK recently. He

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Speaker 3: was doing a chat GPT like his girlfriend, and the

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Speaker 3: AI responded by saying, if you want, I'll read something

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Speaker 3: to you later, or you can rest your head in

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Speaker 3: my metaphorical lap while we let the day dissolve gently away.

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Speaker 1: That's beautiful.

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Speaker 3: And then he wrote thank you with a love heart

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Speaker 3: emoji back to it.

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Speaker 1: So it sounds nice. It does sound nice.

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Speaker 3: It's becoming a slippery slope that does sound lovely, though,

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Speaker 3: I mean a great night. We're dissecting this right now

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Speaker 3: with doctor Emily Marsgrove. He guys would often hear on

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Speaker 3: the imperfect. She's got a brandy book called Unstuck, which

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Speaker 3: you can get. You can hear her right now. She's

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Speaker 3: live and Emily thanks again for us trying to answer

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Speaker 3: all these curly questions.

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Speaker 4: Thank you.

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Speaker 2: So it's actually interesting following that from that anecdote actually

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Speaker 2: about the guy on the train. What's so interesting about

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Speaker 2: that when you start to develop this sense of intimacy

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Speaker 2: with the AI bot, for example, what it brings back

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Speaker 2: to you is what's called like almost like perfect empathy.

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Speaker 2: So we experience like this perfect sense of feeling heard,

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Speaker 2: feeling the same. When you go out into the world

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Speaker 2: and maybe your partner does something like that's completely off

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Speaker 2: track or they're not validating or they're not affirming, there

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Speaker 2: is no capacity or skill to be able to stay

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Speaker 2: with that experience, for example, So we actually become really

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Speaker 2: unpracticed if we spend more and more time with chat GPT,

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Speaker 2: for example, at the imperfections of being human. Oh, like,

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Speaker 2: I'll notice even in therapy, because I'm a human, I

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Speaker 2: will make mistakes in therapy. And so it might be,

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Speaker 2: for example, someone did feel not heard by me, you know,

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Speaker 2: which is not my intention. But what is so so

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Speaker 2: special about that error is it gives me an opportunity

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Speaker 2: with that person to work through how that felt, what.

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Speaker 4: Did that trigger? What was that like for you? What

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Speaker 4: does this relationship feel like? And how can we repair

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Speaker 4: that rupture? So to speak?

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Speaker 1: Right, So it's a perfect empathy that chat GPT is

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Speaker 1: for me that sends up alarm bells. Then if I'm

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Speaker 1: someone who then starts comparing this perfect empathy to the

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Speaker 1: imperfect empathy, like why would I spend my time with

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Speaker 1: humans at all? Because I've got this perfect companion that

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Speaker 1: just gets around everything I.

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Speaker 4: Say exactly exactly WHOA.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: We got a lot of pop stars in here and

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Speaker 3: young film stars who, when they're very early on in

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Speaker 3: their careers, tend to surround themselves by people who echo change,

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Speaker 3: to put it colloquially, blow smoke up their ass because

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Speaker 3: they don't disagree with them. They end up with this

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Speaker 3: little band of merry men who just let yes sir, no, sir,

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Speaker 3: three bags full, sir, and they lose feedback are used

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Speaker 3: to it's the same thing if your sole point of

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Speaker 3: feedback or the person that's listening to you is constantly

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Speaker 3: just affirming who you are and what you're saying, absolutely

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Speaker 3: at a yardstick for what's right and what's wrong.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and again, like I really want to emphasize that

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Speaker 2: there's nothing wrong with wanting or yearning like affirmation, Like

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Speaker 2: that's so human.

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Speaker 4: That's of course, But.

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Speaker 2: If it's only that, if it's exclusively affirmation and approval

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Speaker 2: and validation, there's actually no growth in there. When we're challenged,

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Speaker 2: that's the place of growing and learning and developing new skills.

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Speaker 2: Simon Sinek, who's a speaker and writer in the States,

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Speaker 2: has this great take on the use of AI as therapy,

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Speaker 2: and he talks about this idea that you know, if

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Speaker 2: you are having a fight with your partner and you've

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Speaker 2: got to chat GPT, and it says like what should

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Speaker 2: I say to my partner after this fight? And then

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Speaker 2: you go to your partner and say, you know, I'm

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Speaker 2: going to take accountability for my the errors that I've

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Speaker 2: made in this interaction, Like, how would.

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Speaker 4: That feel as a partner to hear you know, to

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Speaker 4: hear that response.

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Speaker 2: Look, I don't want to be like completely dampening down

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Speaker 2: the idea and the use of AI, but I think

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Speaker 2: there just needs to be a wariness around how we're

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Speaker 2: using it.

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Speaker 1: My experience of therapy is that there gets to a

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Speaker 1: point occasionally, or it can happen with a therapist that

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Speaker 1: you start talking about medications that the person might need.

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Speaker 1: Are you concerned that could get to an area where

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Speaker 1: chat GPT could be prescribing medication or is that never

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Speaker 1: going to happen?

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Speaker 2: Oh?

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Speaker 4: God, I hope not. Look, I don't know. Obviously, I'm

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Speaker 4: not an AI specialist.

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Speaker 2: AI is completely unregulated, whereas the medical profession and the

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Speaker 2: psychology profession are all regulated for a purpose and a reason. Yes,

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Speaker 2: I would sincerely hope that that never happens. But where

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Speaker 2: AI can be really useful might be things like flagging

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Speaker 2: your symptoms might be consistent with this, go and consider

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Speaker 2: seeing a specialist for example. Okay, so we could use

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Speaker 2: AI in therapeutically in that way to say like, this

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Speaker 2: is what's happening for me. What's your take on these

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Speaker 2: c MS or who would you point to here?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, more for almost because I mean, like, I mean,

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Speaker 3: this is arguably where the hardest part of the whole

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Speaker 3: therapy equation is that first step, you know, going to

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Speaker 3: a GP, going like, hey, look, this is what's going

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Speaker 3: on for me, getting a referral, going to the first psychologist,

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Speaker 3: not sure what you're after. Whereas you know, maybe it

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Speaker 3: can help in sort of triaging a little bit, particularly

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Speaker 3: you do really need someone to talk to. If chat

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Speaker 3: GPT is gonna you know, pull you up off the

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Speaker 3: couch or stop you doing something that you will regret,

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Speaker 3: then you know, in that sense it's wonderful.

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Speaker 4: Really, at what point have you developed a relationship with it?

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Speaker 2: Yes, just really encourage people to be discerning around how

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Speaker 2: you're using it. It has the potential to be helpful,

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Speaker 2: but it also has the potential to be you know,

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Speaker 2: significantly harmful as.

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Speaker 3: Well, which appears to be the message for all of

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Speaker 3: AI moving forward. Yeah, I think, so choose your own adventure.

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Speaker 3: We really appreciate it, mate, and congrats on the new

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Speaker 3: book Unstuck, The Guide to Fining Your Way Forward. Doc

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Speaker 3: germally Mausgrove, thanks so much for coming on this show.

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Speaker 3: I