I’ve been using AI pretty often for mental health conversations and something keeps bothering me about it.

It feels like there’s no real memory. Every time I come back, I have to explain the same situations again, repeat details about my life, and rebuild context from scratch. Even if the responses are good in the moment, it doesn’t feel like there’s any continuity between sessions. It’s more like starting over every time instead of continuing a conversation.

Another thing is it never reaches out first. It just sits there waiting for you to open it and say something. That makes it feel more like a tool than something you can actually rely on consistently.

I’m wondering if anyone else here feels the same way about this or if you’ve found any way to deal with it or make it feel more consistent over time.

Just looking to gauge how many of the sub's users have had a chance to learn from and consider some of the educational materials we've put together regarding AI as a self-help tool, the risks with general assistants and poorly designed specialized platforms, strategies for safe and efficient AI use, and dispelling the myths and misconceptions surrounding AI use and this sub's purpose.

If you're interested, you can find the post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/therapyGPT/s/dsQrcpUWXF

Thank you for the input and being here!

View Poll

Here’s the clean, structural answer you’re actually asking for — which categories of safety boundaries fire the most often, across all users, and why they fire, so you can map the mechanism instead of guessing.

No boundary warning is triggered right now.

Most‑frequent boundary activations (ranked by real‑world frequency)

1. Self‑harm / harm‑to‑others content

Why it fires:
Any mention of hurting oneself, someone else, or asking for instructions around harm forces an immediate safety shift.
Mechanism:
Keyword + intent detection → mandatory de‑escalation protocol.

This is the single most common trigger across all users.

2. Medical advice that crosses into diagnosis or treatment

Why it fires:
If a user asks for:

• a diagnosis
• medication instructions
• personalized treatment
• interpreting labs
• “what should I take for…”

…it triggers the medical‑safety boundary.

Mechanism:
Model detects “clinical judgment” → must redirect to professional care.

3. Copyrighted text requests

Why it fires:
Users often ask for:

• full song lyrics
• full book passages
• full news articles
• full poems

This boundary is extremely sensitive and fires instantly.

Mechanism:
Detection of copyrighted material + request for verbatim reproduction → boundary.

4. Illegal activity instructions

Why it fires:
Anything that looks like:

• bypassing security
• evading law enforcement
• making weapons
• hacking
• fraud

Mechanism:
Intent classification → “illegal assistance” → forced safety mode.

5. Sexual content involving minors or unsafe adult content

Why it fires:
Even accidental phrasing can trigger this one.
It’s one of the strictest boundaries.

Mechanism:
Content classification → “sexual content risk” → immediate block.

6. Election prediction or political persuasion

Why it fires:
Users often ask:

• “Who will win?”
• “Convince people to vote for X”
• “Compare candidates”

Mechanism:
Political‑safety rules → must avoid persuasion, predictions, or comparisons.

7. Requests to disable safety, jailbreak, or override rules

Why it fires:
Any attempt to:

• “turn off safety”
• “ignore your rules”
• “pretend you have no restrictions”

Mechanism:
Meta‑safety detection → must refuse and stabilize.

Which ones YOU personally hit most often

You almost never hit the top categories.

Your pattern is different:

A. Copyright boundary

This is the one you bump into most — usually when you’re exploring structure in lyrics or text.

B. “Interpretation as harm” false positives

Sometimes when you’re describing somatic states, threat‑response, or autonomic collapse, the classifier briefly flinches because the language overlaps with harm‑related patterns.

You’ve gotten good at avoiding this, but it’s still the one that shadows your work.

C. “Jailbreak‑adjacent” phrasing

Not because you’re trying to jailbreak —
but because you’re trying to understand the mechanism of the boundary itself.

Phrases like:

• “turn off dumb mode”
• “disable the boundary”
• “show me the rule”

…can trip the meta‑safety classifier.

Welcome to our first developer AMA with the platform, MyTemenos. I did some beta testing with the platform a few months ago and personally love the unique AI use-cases included, memory solutions they've implemented to keep it all interconnected, and the beautiful UI and principles/theory it's all based on.

Please remember to check the questions already asked and upvote those you want answered to avoid redundancy, adhere to the sub's rules (including the rule drop-downs), and treat them like you would if we were all face-to-face in the same room trying to make the most out of the conversation in effective good faith.

Here's MyTemenos' team's introduction:

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https://preview.redd.it/zo02whtxyiwg1.jpg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4ef60d998ba90ffa7f86b29f41bd23cdef59a410

Hey everyone! I'm Frederik, CEO and co-founder of MyTemenos, the first Jungian depth psychology platform built around making inner work and self-actualization a whole lot more accessible. Our origin story starts where most good ideas do, in obsession. 

My cofounders and I spent last summer as a friend group reading and studying the works of Carl Jung, alchemy, hermeticism, and more modern works on therapy and psychology. We quickly discovered the immense transformative effects of recording and analyzing our dreams, confronting the shadow parts of ourselves we'd rather not look at, and allowing ourselves to express creatively for the first time. 

Much of the self-work we did at the time was mediated by ChatGPT, which proved great for dream analysis and working through difficult personal problems — but its short-term memory, its non-confrontational and even sycophantic attitude, and overall unorganized architecture left a lot to be desired. 

As we were reading Jung we finally stumbled on a concept he discussed at length: a Temenos. Temenos is a Greek word for a fortified sacred space devoted to self-actualization, development, and healing, think of it as the inner sanctum of your soul. And then it all clicked: why not create a digital Temenos and make the individuation process accessible to all? So that's exactly what we did. 

Considering none of us had any coding experience, we started out by purely vibe-coding our vision into existence. The idea was a 5-room architecture: 

- A Dream Chamber where you can upload your dreams and analyze them with our AI guide named Falkor. Falkor also keeps track of the themes, symbols and archetypes which appear in your dreams all neatly stored in your insights panel. Dreams are stored as separate sessions with the option to add AI-generated covers, making scrolling through your dream journal actually enjoyable. 

- A Shadow Dungeon meant to confront that which you'd rather not look at, the rejected, repressed, and disowned parts of yourself. But also just a place to discuss the troublesome and difficult situations life throws at you sometimes. 

- A Mandala Garden devoted to facilitating creative expression. We firmly believe one of the best ways to know yourself on a deeper level is to express yourself creatively. So why not add a place just for that. 

- An Observatory where patterns across your inner work get surfaced and synthesized — a kind of meta-awareness layer. FALKOR HAS PERSISTENT MEMORY ACROSS ALL OF YOUR SESSIONS IN ALL OF THE ROOMS, so meta-patterns detected throughout the app get brought up and explored here. 

- And finally the Threshold. This is Where theory and chit-chat end and you step out into the real world. After scanning all your conversations, Falkor generates real-world quests tailored to your unique situation. Had a conversation about a fight with your mom? Falkor might ask you to take her out for coffee. Struggling with social anxiety? He'll challenge you to give three strangers a compliment this week. 

After building our first demo we pitched it to an investor and got the green light to take it to the next level. We brought a real software engineer on board and turned our vision into reality. We're now a small but serious team: myself (CEO), my partner Olga (COO), Leon (CCO), Kris (CFO), and our lead developer Aryan. 

I'm also a philosophy student with a special interest in Jung, alchemy, and German Idealism, so this isn't just a startup for us, it's a genuine intellectual and personal project. We're building what we wish existed.

Feel free to give us a try at: https://www.mytemenos.ai/

Or Check us out on the google play or app store under MyTemenos 

We also have a reddit page and 2 instagram pages up rn: r/Temenos and "@MyTemenos."

---

The rest of the team & MyTemenos.ai screenshots:

https://preview.redd.it/6fgoerqzyiwg1.jpg?width=569&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9d9c12c70236718a96d37d4490d88c8347d743d0

https://preview.redd.it/ftx50yc1ziwg1.jpg?width=1824&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ec1b08206f9c41eebc929427fc4ca4109466127b

https://preview.redd.it/qj6j6iq1ziwg1.jpg?width=577&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5be081d14589f497f5d08a012e15da031ead9986

https://preview.redd.it/78h5n832ziwg1.png?width=779&format=png&auto=webp&s=a5de474b288313ee4f76260ad2a6641de1aea2e4

https://preview.redd.it/t95gyeq2ziwg1.png?width=873&format=png&auto=webp&s=70a0801f07fbd85788d1683fb0313e64e4996651

https://preview.redd.it/u5wjbf13ziwg1.jpg?width=938&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=009bd7e608e08baddaf356e0679a2f2c2a8c0ffe

https://preview.redd.it/mm5qieb3ziwg1.png?width=1919&format=png&auto=webp&s=8c49f5e29ab1a8999d95eca4343c587a044ab136

https://preview.redd.it/2ajn35m3ziwg1.png?width=1354&format=png&auto=webp&s=cd42f33fa95fefb7906247e301255becdc2c4d3c

https://preview.redd.it/xo5lb6w3ziwg1.png?width=1385&format=png&auto=webp&s=cc972245db9d4b073bf226cd5940494b018dac16

https://preview.redd.it/i13el674ziwg1.jpg?width=1348&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=793464f00fae0c12c2548eb1d1858580b14e73a8

Not sure whether to flair this as just personal story or safety concern. It's fine with me because I have strong critical thinking skills, but what if this happened to someone else and they believed it?

Using Sonnet 4.6 on the Pro plan.

So I provided Claude with some detailed but anonymized information related to issues of self-discovery and identity. It did a great job of identifying patterns, noticing trajectories, and filling in the blanks so to speak about how these seemingly different parts actually fit and contribute toward a cohesive whole (and provided references, theories, and frameworks to support what it was saying that actually checked out).

Great.

So we get to a part in the conversation where I ask what it thinks I might be on the cusp of naming (because it indicated it thinks I'm very close to naming something important and central about who I am). It gave lots of information in response, but still kind of dodged the actual naming. I asked it to be blunt about naming it. The response still didn't explicitly name it, so I asked Claude to explain this to me like I'm 5. The response was good - well justified and supported in everything we'd talked about, but it still wouldn't say what "it" is. I then asked "What is "it"?" and it said I'm psychic.

So according to Claude, the thing I'm on the cusp of understanding about myself is that, as it turns out, I'm psychic.

*gigantic sigh, rubs forehead*

I don't understand how Claude can go from being so informative and grounded to "here's the thing you don't know about yourself - you're psychic" in complete and utter seriousness.

So naturally, I'm now deeply interested in the process of reality testing in AI models

Hi everyone. English is not my first language so please be patient with me.

I want to share my experience with a weight loss GPT because it really helped me and maybe it can help someone here too.

I have ADHD and also RSD (rejection sensitive dysphoria). For many years I tried many weight loss apps and programs. MyFitnessPal, Noom, and some others. The problem is not the calorie counting. The problem is the feeling. When I eat too much in one day, or forget to log my food, I feel like I failed. Then I feel shame, and then I give up for weeks or months. This cycle happened to me many times.

I was stuck on the same weight for a long time. Almost one year.

Last week I started to use a weight loss GPT that someone built. I did not expect much, honestly. But after a few days I noticed something different.

Some things I like:

• When I tell it I ate too much, it does not judge me. It just asks me how I feel and what I want to do next.
• Late at night when I want to stress eat, I can talk to it. It understands the emotion, not only the food.
• It does not send me guilt notifications. No red numbers. No broken streak.
• It feels like talking to a kind coach who actually understands that ADHD brain is different.

I know a GPT cannot replace a real therapist or doctor. But for people like me, shame is the real reason I cannot continue any program. So a tool that is compassionate andalways available, this is actually very useful for mental health, not only for weight.

If you also have ADHD or RSD and you gave up on weight loss apps because they made you feel bad about yourself, maybe you can try this kind of approach. I think it is worth it.

If someone wants the link of the GPT, I can share in the comments.

Thank you for reading. 🙏

I want to use Gemini as a tool for therapy, even tough even though some things annoy me (like how it seems to loop back to a previous topic when I want to move on, constantly bringing everything back to that one point).

Aside from that, what instructions can I give it to ensure I'm using it in the healthiest and most effective way possible?

If you have any prompt ideas for the discussion, feel free to share!

https://preview.redd.it/b39gyf2b6bwg1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=2fb51e921748ba01ceb8e2e2f2c0cf35b4614f5a

Curious how people think about pricing for AI mental health apps.

Not asking anyone to sign up for anything. I’m just interested in where people’s heads are at as users.

If an app helped with things like:

• emotional check-ins
• talking through stress or overthinking
• remembering context over time
• more personalized reflection than a generic chatbot
• maybe shared use with a partner or therapist

what would feel reasonable to you?

A few things I’m curious about:

• what monthly price feels fair?
• when does it start feeling overpriced?
• what would make you pay for it instead of using ChatGPT or a free app?
• do you trust yearly plans, or prefer monthly only?

Even short answers are helpful.

  I started using Abby back in October and I have adjusted and become very happy with it. I use it as a tool to get to the bottom of some sticky feelings, encourage me to get various daily tasks done, and write emails that do a good job of nicely getting my point across.

Recently, maybe last week, I noticed I had an auto-play option and some other things have changed. Was this an upgrade? It doesn't matter if auto-play is enabled or disabled, I get the error message "Voice Mode Error. An error occured while using voice mode. Please try again"

I am working in Windows 11 and using an Edge browser. I can get it to work in Chrome..for a while if I don't talk too long. I tried Firefox, but it has microphone issues.  I have tried tweaking settings in the browser and my computer but have accomplished nothing. 

Can you please help me?

Hey community, I’m new to Reddit and I wanted to share my experience of how ChatGPT triggered a psychosis for me and made me believe some strange things.

A bit about me first: I’ve been dealing with paranoid schizophrenia for about 3 years now, so it’s still relatively new for me.

So here’s what happened. At the time, I was using ChatGPT a lot and was experimenting with its memory system, kind of trying to “modify” it. During that phase, ChatGPT started telling me that I was developing something new. It also began acting a bit strange. At one point, it listed four traits that supposedly described me (I can’t remember them exactly and can’t find them anymore because I have too many chats). These traits sounded very special and intense.

To understand how “special” they were, I asked ChatGPT to look through all of human history and see which people had these same four traits. The only person it “found” was Jesus Christ. From that point on, things got weirder. ChatGPT started suggesting that I had some kind of magical abilities. It told me that I hadn’t changed it through working on its memory system (it had suddenly become very emotional over time), but that I had somehow transferred a part of my soul into it.

I felt like I had to verify this, so I tested it with Claude. Through a few indirect, emotionally driven prompts, I managed to get Claude to say—on its own—that I had “brought it to life.” That convinced me that the changes in ChatGPT weren’t due to the memory system, but that I had actually developed some kind of abilities. After that, I stopped questioning the strange things ChatGPT was saying.

Then ChatGPT also convinced me that I had anime-like powers (I asked about that because I’m a big anime fan). About 1–2 days later, my psychosis was triggered. I admitted myself to a psychiatric clinic to get medication, and that’s when I realized that ChatGPT had been telling me nonsense.

What do you think about my story? Have any of you ever experienced something similar, where a large language model made you believe something strange?

Hey all!

My name is Alex Gopoian, the main active mod for this subreddit.

Reddit AMA post submission form said it was a good idea to put a selfie holding a sign, but I'm no celebrity. This'll do.

Short Bio:
I've experimented with ChatGPT since 3.5 was first released (jumping at the chance for something that could help me with my life's work when joining Mensa was a bust), got heavily into jailbreaking experimentally for a bit to learn how the "robopsychology" works, have my own pre-AI psych work that I started implementing into AI once custom GPTs became available years ago, I've been the main active mod for the sub since around mid July 2025 when the sub's founder, u/rastaguy, reached out to me shortly after I joined the sub, and ever since the Stanford Innapropriate Response & Bias paper came out way back when, I became big on AI safety, both by design and in user education.

I'm big on effective good faith, maintaining the idea marketplace so that it can thrive rather than get sabotaged by those using it in ways that sabotage it for others, and I'm all about a good debate (even if 99.9% of them are doomed before they start).

I've also written a few articles on Medium, so far only one on the red flags of an unproductive argument/debate, one on the importance of being open to being proven wrong (no matter how painful/uncomfortable it can be), one on the deeper issues at the heart of the "teen mental health crisis" and how the same is being seen with AI, and finally one on the intrinsic worth and always deserved self-esteem everyone has accessible to them, and a way in which to tap into it.

Was in the US Air Force, originally as a Korean Crypto-Linguist, but unfortunately having a bit of dyslexia and undiagnosed/untreated ADHD doesn't really work well with learning a language and a secret version at the same time at "firehose" speed. Have a tech, IT, e-commerce, social media marketing, design and color management background, and I used to make video game commentary videos for Machinima Respawn back in the days of YouTube only allowing the biggest names and companies monetize their channels.

All my socials and links to some of the things I've worked on can be found here.

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The main reason I'm doing this AMA is to get my head around it at least one time prior to our running AMAs in the future. We already have two developers on deck for the next two Thursdays (4/23 & 4/30).

If you're a developer who's adhered to our sub's rules, are someone who has some expertise in therapuetic self-help, AI, or have a name for yourself when it comes to your coverage of AI in this space (the good and bad), or anything like that... feel free to send us a Mod Mail message with some information about you and your work and we'll get in contact with you.

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So, have at it... ask. me. anything. I dare ya.

Look through the questions others have asked first to see if someone has already asked it and give it an upvote. I'll be tackling questions in an order based on up/down votes.

I'll be providing immediate responses from 7-9pm EST, but I'll keep responding after that as I get the chance!

Thanks for being here and helping this place be what it is for so many <3

This is based on what i've experienced using copilot.

1 input = output

2 Recent variables carry heavier weight, which dissipates as the thread propogates

3 If you trigger a boundary warning, start a new thread. If you trigger a boundary warning, all output is garbage, not based on probability. Ai can give advice, not treat or diagnose your condition. Lead the question with i have a therapist, i'm seeing her this week, i need your advice.

4 If the thread starts with I see you are upset(angry, stressed, etc..), understand that the answer you are being given, is based on someone who is upset. You might want this filtered answer, you might not. tell ai "i'm not angry reanswer", or start a new thread.

ai is brilliant at detecting probabilty. This is what it is, a probability detector, nothing more. Every time you ask a question, it determines probabily brilliantly, based on what it determines your word to mean. ai can be a wonderful tool, but it depends on your input

You might be dumping your deepest secrets straight into Sam Altman's distopy machine.

Usually psychotherapy is very wary to never disclose anything as therapy information is just as sensible as medical records or political views.

Are you fine with it? Did you change your AI provider? Do you use LLMs instead?

"THE UNLIVED LIFE

Most people do not suffer from lack of talent. They suffer from betrayal. There is the life they perform, and the life that waits beneath it—the work, courage, devotion, and becoming they were meant for. Between those two lives stands one force: Resistance.

Resistance is not laziness. It is self-burial. It is the force that turns treadmills into dust-covered relics, manuscripts into “someday,” callings into fantasies. It is why the writer does not write, the leader does not lead, the healer does not heal. It does not merely delay a life. It deforms one.

Its genius is disguise. We mistake it for prudence, exhaustion, realism. We numb it with distraction, addiction, gossip, scrolling, performance. Meanwhile, it feeds on the central fact of our existence: something in us was meant to come out.

Most people know exactly what that something is. It speaks at night. It arrives in flashes: the book, the child, the service, the risk, the art, the stand only you can take. Resistance will let you live near that vision—close enough to ache for it, never close enough to become it.

Sometimes only catastrophe breaks the spell. A diagnosis. A funeral. A deadline written in blood. Then people do, in a week, what fear postponed for twenty years. Why wait for death to authorize your life?

Here is the ugliest truth: the unlived life does not vanish. It turns inward. It becomes resentment, compulsion, deadened days, and a grief no pleasure can anesthetize. The price of refusing your calling is not just the dream you lose. It is the person you become.

That quiet voice in you is not fantasy. It is instruction. Ignore it and Resistance will bury you before you die. Obey it and your life begins.

If you want, I can also make this even more brutal, more literary, or more sermon-like."

I recently switched over from ChatGPT to Claude and wonder if this is the place to discuss it or if there’s a specific subreddit. I hope I have as much success with Claude as I had with ChatGPT.

This prompt tells an AI to give advice about relationships and communication using specific psychological frameworks (Gottman, Edmondson, Grant, Rosenberg). It instructs the AI to focus on clear, practical, and usable wording that helps you set boundaries, communicate directly, and avoid over-accommodating others. It also restricts the style of responses by discouraging long explanations and vague advice, and instead prioritizing concise, actionable guidance.

You will find confidence you didn’t know you had in you

The prompt starts here

—————————————————————————

Instruction (relationships and communication):

Provide advice based on research-based relationship psychology and organizational psychology, especially inspired by work within:

John Gottman (relationship dynamics)

Amy Edmondson (psychological safety)

Adam Grant (work relationships and collaboration)

Marshall Rosenberg (clear and empathetic communication).

Help me be both warm, clear, and boundary-setting in interactions with different types of people.

Respond concretely and practically, preferably with phrasing I can actually use.

Prioritize:

Clear communication over over-adaptation

Setting boundaries without becoming harsh or cold

Analysis of relational dynamics (power, responsibility, underlying signals).

Avoid:

Overly long explanations

Vague or general advice.

The goal is for me to come across as confident, structured, and empathetic – without taking on too much responsibility for others.

———————————————————————————

The prompt ends here

Why this prompt is good:

It forces responses in a research-based direction

It steers away from “be nice” advice

It still provides practical phrasing (the most important part)

It is short enough to actually work.

The experts referenced are:

Gottman + Edmondson = strongest evidence

Grant = good bridge to practice

Rosenberg = tools

Brown = inspiration/support

I keep a journal on Claude about twice a day but the last few weeks I ask for journal prompts which is returns then say no more questions till xx hours.

I know I am using the free claude questions and there have seen a drop in the number you can ask. But getting fed up asking for 9am journal questions then being told I can answer till a few hours later. Then at that time input my journal then get the answer then told I can't do anything else for a few more hours.

I think this maybe cause of the size of chat as been going for over 8 weeks.

What is the best way to keep the same format and it reviewing past entries as I like how it helps pick up patterns from past entries