Coherence Therapy with LLMs - quick demo

post by Chipmonk · 2023-08-14T03:34:29.102Z · LW · GW · 11 comments

update on my current views: a lot of the useful meaning in Coherence Therapy sessions comes from intonation/paralanguage. Unfortunately, language models unfortunately can’t currently perceive this. I don't think current AI systems can do Coherence Therapy nearly as well as a counselor, though I imagine they can still help a lot for issues that can be totally verbalized (which I think isn't that common for people just starting out with therapy). 

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Coherence Therapy is, IMO, probably part of the "one true therapy". I think the crispest explanation of how to update one's own maladaptive beliefs/expectations/parts/traumas, especially when beliefs get stuck and the usual methods don't work. 

Kaj Sotala provides an evidenced-based summary here Book summary: Unlocking the Emotional Brain [LW · GW] which I adore. 

However people I've recommended this to have told me that it's hard to implement.

It might be possible to simulate Coherence Therapy with LLMs, though— especially Claude 2.0 with its 100k context window.

Here's a demo I captured:

Ultimately I enjoyed my session with Counselor Claude.

To try it yourself:

• set up an account with Claude
  • if it's not available in your country: use a VPN (US or UK) to set up the account; it will work after that
• download the post (I have a trimmed PDF available for download here)
• upload it to Claude with prompt:

You are an expert Coherence Therapist. You will lead me through a session of coherence therapy like that described in the post.

• chat!

Let me know in the comments if you come up with improvements for this, or areas where you feel Counselor Claude is lacking.

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