[doright]

Sadly the human need for being heard and understood is innate, and it has been my experience that books can't substitute for that need. On the other hand, there are swathes of incompetent therapists that can only aggravate one's mental state.

The only solution I see is to find the right therapist. Some people might not when their future depends on them finding one, and they give up too early. I can't see how that would be fixed except maybe having a mediator that pairs you up with therapists they recommend and asks if you feel an improvement each week. You'd be surprised, but I had nobody to do this for me. So I ended up losing years worth of time sticking with incompetent therapists because "going to therapy" like everybody told me to seemed more important than "fixing my life."

As cruel as it sounds, I was in no position to think critically about my own treatment because my mental state only allowed me to see checking off the box of self-care to get people off my back as the ultimate goal. It's the nature of the problem of mental healthcare. If I had been given a simple questionnaire to rate my treatment providers on a scale of 1-10 in various dimensions, I would have been put in front of someone else within a month or two.

[fragmede]

You know who's infinitely patient, has read every psychology text book and is available immediately at 2am and not in a week that you have to schedule an appointment for? ChatGPT. (or Claude or any of them.)

[justonceokay]

Despite popular opinion having a sycophantic therapist trained Above all else to be liked by you is actually not good

[balamatom]

I was gonna bet on "the police" but "having read books" kinda disqualified that

[legacynl]

A therapist does more than just listen. A therapist is more like a driving instructor sitting in the second seat that points out things that you should pay attention to, and can take the wheel if you head into dangerous territory.

If you say something like "I hate that people don't see the real me", LLMs would say "yes it's understandable that that would make you upset" basically confirming your reasoning as valid, while a therapist would ask "why do you want to people to see the real you?" or "What is in your words the difference between how people see you now, and how they would see you if they saw the 'real you'?". These kinds of questions force you to explain and identify your assumptions and reasoning.

LLMS are more like friends, providing a listening ear, but otherwise just nodding along.

edit: To be clear, this is why llms are NOT a good replacement for therapy. Using llms will likely only exacerbate instead of mitigate.

[balamatom]

>Sadly the human need for being heard and understood is innate

And humans are hell-bent on denying this to each other. Just like sustenance or shelter. Hmm. Wonder what's that all about?

>You'd be surprised

The hypothetical everyman that is addressee in this turn of phrase? Yeah, probably would. Me though? I wouldn't even feign it.

>but I had nobody to do this for me.

Root of the problem right there. Not your fault. (At least if we reason causally, and not scapegoatingly.)

>So I ended up losing years worth of time sticking with incompetent therapists because "going to therapy" like everybody told me to seemed more important than "fixing my life."

Exactly.

Sending someone to therapy is a socially acceptable accountability sink. And a "good vibes"-coded method of gaslighting.

The sender-to-therapy still wants to maintain your acquaintance. They might not even be getting something out of it, or even expecting to gain something; they just want to do the normal thing like they're taught to; which amounts to "do not be seen looking like you're snubbing somebody because dats rood".

And, simultaneously, they don't actually want the cognitive load of acknowledging you as a real person in a real pickle, so they can't "be there for you" (another treacherous wording). After all, reality is a contagious thing; what's next - they become aware of their own shit? Unthinkable - what if that makes them incapable of traumatizing their kids one day? Better just do the normal thing and let you rot. It's all upside!

It's narcissism all the way down, through the bottom, and up by the bootstraps.

(See also cousin post:

>LLMS are more like friends, providing a listening ear, but otherwise just nodding along.

If that's the standard of friendship, it's more useful to make enemies!)

> If I had been given a simple questionnaire to rate my treatment providers on a scale of 1-10 in various dimensions, I would have been put in front of someone else within a month or two.

And then those poor psych grads would've been denied their lucrative and inconsequential careers! The horror, the enormity!

>It's the nature of the problem of mental healthcare

Mental healthcare is impossible without actual concepts of "mind", "health", and "care". The society we inhabit only has some poor statistical approximations of those, Seeing like a State-style. Best "we" can do, therapy-wise, is figure out how to make you scream less loudly.

>As cruel as it sounds, I was in no position to think critically about my own treatment

It does not sound cruel. You are not hurting anybody. You are being critical of your past self. This is, generally speaking, a correct thing to do.

>because my mental state only allowed me to see checking off the box of self-care to get people off my back as the ultimate goal.

Your mental state does not exist in a vacuum; it is primarily a product of your environment. If they teach you box ticking, you're gonna do box ticking. If they misteach you that box ticking appeases, you're gonna keep ticking boxes until it appeases - except it won't and while you're busy waiting for it to appease them, they will do whatever the fuck they want with you. It's their way of life. Who are we to deny them that? How?

Of course, if you've found a therapist that works for you, all of this is probably moot; as to other readers, my suggestion continues to be as follows:

- Begin with rejecting any premise they're trying to force/shame/blackmail you into accepting, no matter how socially acceptable this premise might seem on the surface.

- Then, proceed to deconstruct the premise and its implications from a maximally cynical perspective. This will simplify things to a level where one is able to reason about them even with most higher faculties disabled.

- Once you've used this to regain higher ground (a process which, in itself, is already a source of valuable first-hand experiences), you can commence the actual "debugging" of your higher faculties (and, through that, figure out those things only you can figure out).