ChatGPT Therapy Is Good, But It Misses What Makes Us Human

The other day I sat down to my first therapy session with ChatGPT, the chatbot that reproduces human thought, or at least seems to.

Partly I was just curious, in that see-what-everyone-is-talking-about way. And as a psychiatrist, maybe I was wondering if I’d be out of a job soon. But I walked away with a reawakened awe for the human mind and its ability to wonder, imagine, and create.

For the session, I didn’t ask ChatGPT to be my therapist. Rather, I asked it to be the therapist for a hypothetical patient, let’s call her Michelle. Based on my sessions with many other patients, I…