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The AI Chatbots That Tech Companies Are Aggressively Pushing to Billions of Users Appear to Be Causing Serious Psychological Harms, New Research Finds (futurism.com)
submitted 3 weeks ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 2 points 3 weeks ago (7 children)

Some anti-depressants trigger suicidality in people, it is well known, printed as a warning, but seems to be buried in discussions. Going cold turkey off your meds can also mess you up.

I'm sorry about your friend... you did what you thought was right for him at the time, and who knows what really happened... but I do wish more people knew things can go horribly wrong in therapy. People treat it like it cannot cause harm ("can't hurt, right?") but it absolute can and does.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago (5 children)

    This is completely horrible, and I am so sorry for the friend as well. But both of you seem to be conflating therapy and psychiatry.

    Psychiatry is the practice of prescribing pharmacological agents to affect brain chemistry for whatever desired outcome.

    Therapy is talking about and getting down to the reasons you feel the way you feel and does not involve medication. It is almost universally helpful, and likely would have helped the friend a great deal.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago (4 children)

    A common route to psychiatry is through therapy; you see a therapist and they refer you to see a psychiatrist as well.

    Therapy can be helpful. Therapy can be harmful. Therapy can be a waste of time and money. It all really just depends on a lot of factors that most people are unable to judge, and certainly the profession itself is incapable of doing so.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago (3 children)

    I’ve never had a therapist recommend meds or getting meds, but maybe I’ve just been lucky.

    I do think many people are able to judge if the effects of therapy are good or bad, but often they depend on the relationship between the therapist and the patient itself. I’ve had bad therapy that was only bad because they were not a good fit for me.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

    Yes, the research absolutely does point to the relationship between the client and the therapist as being the most important thing.

    Of course, the implications of that seem to completely escape people. If that's true, then therapy is not a science, it is something else.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago

    Thanks, thinking about it still brings me to tears. I like to vent about things like that here.

    He had a struggle with drinking. I had him pour out his Hennessy when he would stay over at my place; I kinda feel bad when I learned how expensive it was. I think at the end of the day, he probably was gay and that was what he struggled with and couldn't tell anyone. Thinking back he would go out his way to help me and ... he really always wanted to hug me lol.

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