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Comment by QuiDortDine | Hacker News Reader

And how do you draw the line between feeling progress and actually making progress?

Counter-point: I often raise the same question of people with human therapists. I do not get strong responses.

An LLM is completely unable to make that determination. They can’t even see you. So much information is lost when it’s text-only.

Where are you often asking this question/getting these weak responses?

You don't ask the therapist. You ask the person seeking therapy.

The same way you distinguish between feeling like having a problem and actually having a problem.

This is needlessly flippant and not really the same thing. Determining progress in a therapy setting is usually a collaborative effort between the therapist and the client. An LLM is not a reliable agent to make that determination.

I didn’t claim that an LLM is that, and I fully agree that it is not. I’m saying that one is inherently one’s own judge of whether one has a problem. You go to a therapist when you feel you have a problem that warrants it. You stop going when you feel you don’t have it anymore. And OP is very likely assessing their progress in the same way. I wasn’t being flippant if the parent was asking a genuine question.

> I’m saying that one is inherently one’s own judge of whether one has a problem. You go to a therapist when you feel you have a problem that warrants it

That is for certain types of therapy/clinical care. It is not always - and often isn’t - the case. Plenty of diagnoses and care protocols are not a matter of opinion or based on “you feeling there’s an issue” or deciding on your own there is no longer an issue.

> Determining progress in a therapy setting is usually a collaborative effort between the therapist and the client. An LLM is not a reliable agent to make that determination

Can anyone describe how to determine how a (professional, human) therapist is "a reliable agent" to make such a determination?

If you want to call into question the entire field of behavioral health and the training that is involved then that is fine, but if that’s how you feel then this entire discussion is really about something different and I can’t bridge the gap here.

The thing they have in common is that they will both go forever....

Meaning neither the LLM or the licensed therapist will voluntarily say, you are healed, you don't need me anymore.

Because that’s not really how therapy works

Is there a generally-agreed description of "how therapy works"?

Yes, the DSM-5

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