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Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

I think the frequent advice to lonely people to "go talk to a professional (therapist etc)" has the same kind of effect in such cases. A sense that they can't even have people for support as friends etc, and they need to pay someone to do it or at least have someone do it only as their job description.

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I never thought that. I knew seeking professional help was about trying to fix the underlying problem through therapy, not about paying for friendship. I'm in the process of doing this for the first time myself. I'm having a first consultation today and the irony is that talking to anyone, even a therapist, has increased my anxiety in the short term. But I believe it's necessary and I will get through it because I can't live this way anymore. There must be a better way to live.

The reason I haven't done it earlier is because back in those days I had no health insurance and I knew it would be cost-prohibitive for me.

I also get anxious before my therapy session and frequently feel drained afterwards but I found it to be quite beneficial and it gave me tools to deal with the existential dread that come with living with a partner who has metastatic breast cancer. I wish that your session will be as usefull to you as they are usefull to me.

Even if I am a Canadian I am so grateful to have gold plated private drugs insurance as one drug she currently takes is not reimbursed by the public regime (they cost around 6000$cad/months) and neither are my therapy sessions but both are covered by my policy.

I agree and good for you. I guess all good relationships have some sort of similarity, but therapy is otherwise unlike friendship. It's one-way, that's the whole point, they listen and hold space in a way that doesn't work in a friendship! And they (hopefully) have a lot of professional training in doing so.

Hope you find someone who can work with you in a productive way, best of luck!

Pretty much all psychological advice given by people is at best useless and often very harmful. I used to have serious bouts of depression and social anxiety. All the well intended advice like “just go out there” “cheer up, it’s not too bad” usually just made me hide even more.

Looking for professional help can be even more depressing. Besides the money issue it’s very hard to find a therapist you click with. I went to quite a few therapists. Some felt almost hostile or dismissive towards me and others just useless.

Well here's to hoping that once the dust settles from the current LLM revolution, we'll get some proper AI therapists out of it.

I've tested out some of the current LLama fine tunes that went in that direction and it's looking promising, if a bit crude and not quite smart enough yet at the moment. There's something far more comforting about having a non-human entity to talk to since it's always helpful, never dismissive, has no ulterior motives and it won't remember anything afterwards.

Pretty sure OpenAI will move to doing the remembering.

I've found ChatGPT more helpful than any human therapist. I think that says more about human therapists than it does about AI though.

It does a good job at the role of "friend that never gets tired of listening to you", because it's programmed that way. Which is kind of sad, I suppose. But I'd rather not burden my human friends with that stuff.

(On a peculiar note, I really hope it isn't sentient! I wouldn't feel so comfortable "wasting its time" or asking stupid questions if it was!)

https://www.businessinsider.com/widow-accuses-ai-chatbot-rea...

> I think that says more about human therapists than it does about AI though.

With respect, I think it says much more about the person receiving the care than does therapists or AI.

I disagree, most people have no idea how to deal with a depressed person and the need for a therapist does not necessarily mean a lack of friends. I go to the dentist to fix my teeth and that doesn't mean my friends aren't supportive.

I'd say "go talk to a professional" is more or less the only useful advice one can give there.

Is it? Or is it just the safe thing to say without sticking one's neck out?

I'd wager many depressed people would benefit from interacting with people who are not their psychiatrist.

It may be beneficial for some, but not everyone. Also a large part of therapy is having an isolated environment where you can openly talk about anything that you wouldn't ever share with anyone else. A group of friends is often not that environment.

> Or is it just the safe thing to say without sticking one's neck out?

If you want to stick your neck out in that situation you could offer making a therapist appointment for that person. It lowers the barrier to getting help a lot and imho feels more understanding and supportive than trying to cheer them up or whatever else one might come up with. YMMV of course.

Perhaps, but it’s also often the best way forward if one can afford it (affordability is another rabbit hole entirely). The right therapist can make an incredible difference in quality of life and, for some, can be the only way of digging oneself out of the rut that they’re in.

Having someone with an objective position who can help you see things differently is extremely powerful.

they need to pay someone to do it or at least have someone do it only as their job description.

Ignoring who is giving this advice and the actual state of the person being given the advice, this is more of a side effect of the poor (for patients) health care system in the US and negative perception of mental issues compared to physical issues.

Untrained people can give bad support, especially to someone who is clinically lonely or depressed.

If you are really lonely for a long time, you can very easily loose social skills. Effectively you become simultaneously lonely, simultaneously avoidance of people and simultaneously sabotaging potential relationships.

The professional can actually help in a way that random people can't.

  pay someone

God.. that's indeed a crushing, last resort kind of advice.

On the physical side of companionship there is the paid-for "Girlfriend Experience" in the same vein.

These are truly depressing considerations.

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