Marina vd Roest hadn't faced the man who abused her in decades when she first sat down in front of the laptop. Confronted with his realistic, blinking, speaking face, she felt "scared ... like a little child again." "Sometimes I had to close the laptop and get my breath back before opening it and continuing with the conversation," she says. Vd Roest is one of the first people to have tried out a radical new form of therapy.
Last night in my workshop on Interactive Journaling with AI, one participant spoke up after I had finished my demo with ChatGPT. "I feel less special. I thought the way it talked to me was unique, but it said similar things to you." Once I set aside the part of me that wanted to immediately reassure her, the significance hit me. This is exactly why I teach this workshop.