I don't know if this works but I've been using local, abliterated LLMs as pseudo therapists in a very specific way that seems to work alright for very specific issues I have.

First of all I make myself truly believe that LLMs are NOT humans nor have any sort of emotional understanding. This allows me to take whatever it spouts out as just another perspective rather than actionable advice like what comes from a therapist and also allows me to be emotionally detached from the whole conversation which adds another dimension to the conversation for me.

Second I will make sure to talk to it negatively about myself ie: I won't say " I have issue xyz but I am a good abc"; Allow me to explain through an example.

Example prompt:

I have a tendency to become an architectural astronaut, running after the perfect specification, the perfect data model, bulletproof types rather than settling for good enough for now and working on the crux of the problem I am trying to solve. Give me a detailed list of scientifically proven methods I can employ in order to change my mindset regarding my work.

It then proceeds to spout a large paragraph, praising me with fluff which attempts to "appease" me, and I simply ignore it, but along with that it'll give me actual good advice that's commonly employed by people who do suffer these sort of issues. I read it with the same emotional attachment as I have when reading a Reddit post and see if there's something useful and move on.

The only metric I have for the efficacy of this method is me actually moving forward with a few projects I just kept rewriting the design document for and I would end this comment by just saying LLMs will never replace real therapy; just use them as a glorified search engine, cross check the information using an actual search engine and other peoples' perspective, and move on.

For my local abliterated LLM, my favorite is huihui_ai/gemma3-abliterated:12b. I take the last few months of diary entires and ask it to roast me, which is something your therapist probably wouldn't do:

"Please roast me brutally. Show me all the ways I have failed and the mistakes I keep making over and over again. I am not looking for kindness or euphemisms. Let me have it."

Helps keep me humble and self-aware.

That's interesting, and I have no doubt it works for you. This sounds like a ritual you devised for yourself in order to get your work done, but one who would have to demonstrate that "talking" to an LLM is actually more effective than any other trick like saying "I'll just work for 10 minutes" or chanting some mantra that gets you in the right mood to code. I think you already said that here

> I read it with the same emotional attachment as I have when reading a Reddit post and see if there's something useful and move on.

but I'd love to see a study that actually tests interacting with an LLM vs. other techniques.

[flagged]