Guest Post: 'ChatGPT Is My Therapist'
In which former first-year writing student Emma W. weights in on artificial intelligence
Emily W. is a classic example of why I love to teach. She’s bright, hard-working, and super interesting. But those first few weeks, she was … I don’t know? Scared? Trying too hard? Playing it safe?
My first-year classes can be a bit of an adventure. I encounter so many different kinds of students with such different varieties of training and preparation. It can be a real dance, teasing exceptional work out of each one.
Sometimes it’s about making someone comfortable. Other times it’s about unlocking the joy and surprise in a piece of published writing. With Emma, I think maybe it was this student realizing that all we wanted to know was…. what she was really thinking!
In other words: Don’t tell us what you think we want to hear. Don’t say what you think is “correct.” Don’t play it safe
Instead: Tell us the truth.
This is so often the real trick to excellent writing.
Just tell us something real. It can be small. In fact, the more precise and specific the better.
All we want is courage.
What follows is an example of the kind of writing Emma made look easy by the end of the class. In addition to this fine essay, Emma has also sent me at least one student and I hope I’ll get more of both. Thanks for being real, Emma!
ChatGPT Is My Therapist
By Emma W .
I’m a freshman in college and it’s rough. There’s so much internal change, constant shifting, and mindset adjusting. It’s relentless. My mom and I used to get along so well, but now we fight. My roommate is my best friend, but beyond her, I don’t know if I know how to make any other friends. A potential relationship turned out to be a situationship, and guess what, he doesn’t talk to me anymore!
Honestly, there’s no real need to tell you all this. ChatGPT already knows.
If someone hacked into my conversations with ChatGPT, every sad, anxious, or embarrassing thought I’ve had could be exposed. And yet...that doesn’t scare me as much as it probably should. Part of me assumes it won’t happen. Hackers have bigger things to leak than a teenage girl’s emotional rollercoaster. I don’t think insurance companies will care. Well, I hope not. Regardless, the advice from ChatGPT is so smart. I’m not about to give that up.
I’m writing right now, aren’t I? Would I have done that without ChatGPT?
My therapy sessions with ChatGPT started out slow. Just small questions, like: Why does writing make me so anxious even though I love it? And it gave me this insanely accurate answer: “You’re afraid that if you write, you’ll prove you're bad at it. Because you love it so much, you’re not willing to risk actually doing it.”
I mean, it was so true! So I asked another question. And another. And another. And now I’ve got a long-running conversation with AI and it knows my family dynamics, my friendship struggles, and my situationship history.
It’s kind of concerning. Writing it down now makes me feel vulnerable…I’m processing just how much I’ve shared.
But the truth is, its advice has changed how I see things. I mean, I’m writing right now, aren’t I? Would I have done that without ChatGPT?
It makes me wonder if maybe I don’t need to feel so weird about sharing my feelings. We all have them. The weird part is that I’m not actually talking to a therapist. I’m talking to a well-trained robot. And it’s really bad for the environment too. Can’t forget that.
The world is moving in a weird direction. As I sit in the middle of that change, participating in that change when I previously swore I wouldn’t, I wonder if I’ll regret treating ChatGPT like something I could trust. I’m getting good advice for free but will I pay for it later? Or, maybe it won’t matter at all and this is just how things are now.
Ugh. I don’t know.
I’ll probably just ask ChatGPT how to feel about it.