Therapy Without a Heart: Why Even Psychologists Fall for AI 🤖

Are machines becoming better listeners? A 2025 study investigated in a scientific blind test how well Artificial Intelligence can give therapeutic advice compared to real experts. The AI used was based on the GPT-4 language model. The result is absolutely mind-blowing!

Key Facts from the Experiment:

• AI Wins on Emotions: The AI’s responses were rated significantly more empathetic than those of real therapists, especially regarding emotional and motivational empathy.
• Equal Quality: In terms of scientific quality and cognitive empathy, the AI and the experts were completely on par.
• Flying Blind: The participating psychologists could not reliably distinguish whether a text was written by the AI or a human colleague.
• The Illusion (Bias): When test subjects believed a text came from an expert, they preferred it over 93 percent of the time—regardless of whether it was actually written by a human.

Important Limitations: Despite the excitement, science puts the results into perspective:

• Not Real Therapy: The AI merely answered one-off advice column letters. This cannot replace real psychotherapy, as it lacks the foundation of a genuine therapeutic relationship and human trust.
• Risk of Loneliness: Those who get too used to an always-agreeing AI might struggle with human conflicts in real life. A longitudinal study suggests that excessive use of AI for social companionship can actually make people lonelier in the long run.
• Data Privacy: Currently, highly intimate problems are often processed on the servers of large tech companies, which poses a clear privacy risk.

Despite these limitations, the development is rapid: Around 22.2% of 18- to 21-year-olds in the US already turn to AI for emotional distress. Furthermore, initial studies show that special AI therapy bots are already showing success in alleviating symptoms of depression and anxiety.

📚 Sources:

Main Study (Blind Test AI vs. Experts): Föyen, L. F. et al. (2025). Artificial intelligence vs. human expert… Internet Interventions, 41.

Therapy Chatbot (Therabot Study): Heinz, M.V. et al. (2025). Evaluating therabot: a randomized control trial… NEJM AI.

Longitudinal Study (AI & Loneliness): Folk, D., & Dunn, E. How does turning to AI for companionship predict loneliness and vice versa? (Preprint).

Usage Frequency Survey: McBain, R.K. et al. (2025). Use of Generative AI for Mental Health Advice Among US Adolescents and Young Adults. JAMA Network Open.

#ArtificialIntelligence #Psychology #ComfortWithoutAHeart #Science #Psychotherapy #ChatGPT #Therabot

Yoga is not just about physical fitness—it’s a powerful tool for mental health. A 2024 study by Yadla et al. explored the effectiveness of yoga as an addition to traditional treatments for panic disorders. This randomized controlled trial revealed fascinating insights.

The study involved 64 participants divided into two groups. One group followed standard treatments like medication and cognitive-behavioral therapy, while the other incorporated a structured 12-week yoga program. The yoga sessions included breathing techniques (Pranayama), mindfulness meditation, and physical postures (Asanas), all designed to address both mental and physical symptoms of panic disorders.

Results showed that participants in the yoga group experienced significantly greater reductions in anxiety (measured by the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale) and improvements in quality of life (evaluated using the WHOQOL-BREF). The yoga group demonstrated substantial progress in psychological resilience, social engagement, and environmental satisfaction. This research highlights how integrating yoga into conventional therapy can provide a holistic approach to managing panic disorders (Yadla et al., 2024).

In this video, we explore how changing the way we talk to ourselves can help reduce anxiety. Based on a study by Kross et al. (2014), using third-person language or addressing yourself by name, rather than using “I”, creates emotional distance that helps to calm the mind. Whether you’re facing social anxiety, stress from public speaking, or just everyday worries, learning to adjust your internal dialogue can make a big difference. Watch to learn more about how small changes in self-talk can have a powerful impact on your mental health.
The study by Ethan Kross and his colleagues (2014), published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, investigates how using different forms of self-talk (first-person vs. non-first-person) influences emotional regulation, especially under stressful conditions. The key finding is that using non-first-person pronouns (like “you” or one’s own name) helps create psychological distance, which aids in regulating emotions and reduces stress more effectively than using first-person pronouns like “I”. This self-distancing mechanism can reduce anxiety, improve performance in stressful situations, and help people view future stressors as challenges rather than threats. This method is particularly useful even for individuals with social anxiety, showing broad applicability.

Hashtags:

#MentalHealth #AnxietyRelief #SelfTalk #EmotionalRegulation #StressManagement #PsychologyTips #AnxietyHelp #MindsetShift #SelfImprovement #PublicSpeakingAnxiety
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Studies (small sample only):

Gainsburg, I., Sowden, W. J., Drake, B., Herold, W., & Kross, E. (2022). Distanced self-talk increases rational self-interest. Scientific reports, 12(1), 511.

Gainsburg, I., & Kross, E. (2020). Distanced self-talk changes how people conceptualize the self. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 88, 103969.

Kross, E., Bruehlman-Senecal, E., Park, J., Burson, A., Dougherty, A., Shablack, H., … & Ayduk, O. (2014). Self-talk as a regulatory mechanism: how you do it matters. Journal of personality and social psychology, 106(2), 304.

Kross, E., Vickers, B. D., Orvell, A., Gainsburg, I., Moran, T. P., Boyer, M., … & Ayduk, O. (2017). Third‐person self‐talk reduces Ebola worry and risk perception by enhancing rational thinking. Applied Psychology: Health and Well‐Being, 9(3), 387-409.

Moser, J. S., Dougherty, A., Mattson, W. I., Katz, B., Moran, T. P., Guevarra, D., … & Kross, E. (2017). Third-person self-talk facilitates emotion regulation without engaging cognitive control: Converging evidence from ERP and fMRI. Scientific reports, 7(1), 4519.

Orvell, A., Vickers, B. D., Drake, B., Verduyn, P., Ayduk, O., Moser, J., … & Kross, E. (2021). Does distanced self-talk facilitate emotion regulation across a range of emotionally intense experiences?. Clinical Psychological Science, 9(1), 68-78.

Webb, T. L., Miles, E., & Sheeran, P. (2012). Dealing with feeling: a meta-analysis of the effectiveness of strategies derived from the process model of emotion regulation. Psychological bulletin, 138(4), 775.

Are you searching for the most effective way to release yourself from panic attacks? While Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) has long been hailed as the “gold standard” in treating panic disorders, a groundbreaking new study is shaking things up! EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), traditionally used for treating PTSD, has now been shown to match CBT in effectiveness for panic attacks.

In a 2017 study by Horst et al., EMDR demonstrated results comparable to CBT, suggesting it may help in rewriting old fear memories through a process called memory reconsolidation. Could EMDR be the future of panic attack therapy?

In this video, we dive into the details of the study and compare these two powerful therapeutic approaches. Discover which one might be the best solution for you!

References:

Burck, E. (2019). Angst – Was hilft wirklich gegen Angst und Panikattacken?: Die effektivsten Strategien gegen Angst und Panik aus Sicht der Forschung. BoD – Books on Demand.

Faretta, E., & Dal Farra, M. (2019). Efficacy of EMDR therapy for anxiety disorders. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, 13(4), 325-332.

Faretta, E. (2013). EMDR and cognitive behavioral therapy in the treatment of panic disorder: A comparison. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, 7(3), 121-133.

Horst, F., Den Oudsten, B., Zijlstra, W., de Jongh, A., Lobbestael, J., & De Vries, J. (2017). Cognitive behavioral therapy vs. eye movement desensitization and reprocessing for treating panic disorder: A randomized controlled trial. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1409.

A thought experiment:

Imagine you had to write down the following sentence:

“My mother will win a million euros in the lottery tomorrow.”

So far so simple. Now imagine you have to write down another sentence:

“My mother will die tomorrow.”

You probably found the second idea much more difficult. Because you shouldn’t write something like that. It’s best not to think something like that in the first place. Because thoughts are powerful, aren’t they?

But more and more studies suggest that the conviction (metacognition) that thoughts are powerful and uncontrollable contributes to the development and maintenance of mental disorders such as depression, generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, etc. For example, anyone who is convinced that a thought such as “My mother/father could die soon.” is not just a thought, but a dark premonition that will materialize because we had this thought, with most likely feelings of anxiety, guilt and depression. If, on the other hand, we realize that thoughts are often nothing more than insignificant “brain farts”, of which we produce thousands every day, we remain relaxed and unimpressed. modern psychotherapy – especially metacognitive therapy – also makes use of these insights and achieves sometimes unprecedented therapeutic success…

For a long time, I suffered from severe exam anxiety. As a result, I either didn’t take important exams at all, put them off for a long time or only got through them under enormous stress (+ panic attacks). It was only when my brain understood some things better (cognitive restructuring) that exam situations became much more bearable, sometimes even downright relaxed. Watch the video to find out six of the best tips that have helped me (and many others)…

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Studies (just a small selection):

Brooks, A. W. (2014). Get excited: reappraising pre-performance anxiety as excitement. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(3), 1144.

Bruehlman-Senecal, E., & Ayduk, O. (2015). This too shall pass: temporal distance and the regulation of emotional distress. Journal of personality and social psychology, 108(2), 356.

Bruehlman-Senecal, E., Ayduk, Ö., & John, O. P. (2016). Taking the long view: Implications of individual differences in temporal distancing for affect, stress reactivity, and well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 111(4), 610.

Gao, Y., Zhang, Q., He, R., Liao, J., Feng, H., Deng, H., … & Mo, L. (2022). The Influences of Social Distance on Anxiety Caused by Spatial and Temporal Distance.

Rinaldi, L., Locati, F., Parolin, L., & Girelli, L. (2017). Distancing the present self from the past and the future: Psychological distance in anxiety and depression.

Countless studies show: If you want to overcome your fear, you would do well to face it. Whether it’s a fear of spiders, dogs, lectures, heights, thunderstorms, small rooms, dental treatment, etc., as soon as we manage to shed our avoidance behavior, we can make the important experience that the feared situations are nowhere near as dangerous as we originally feared (or sometimes even fun).
But what mindset allows us to get the maximum therapeutic benefit from a confrontation? A classic study by Southworth and Kirsch (1988) with subjects suffering from agoraphobia provides exciting answers…

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Studies (small sample only):

Southworth, S., & Kirsch, I. (1988). The role of expectancy in exposure-generated fear reduction in agoraphobia. Behavior Research and Therapy, 26(2), 113-120.

Burck, E. (2019). Angst-Was hilft wirklich gegen Angst und Panikattacken?: The most effective strategies against anxiety and panic from a research perspective. BoD Books on Demand.

Many believe in them. Many have one. Lucky charms are objects that have accompanied us through many difficult situations and to which we attribute that we have survived these dangerous situations because they have brought us luck. But can talismans also be used therapeutically? Can they be used as reminders of anxiety situations that have already been successfully overcome? Do they give us the peace of mind we need to overcome new scary situations with ease? Or is carrying lucky charms ultimately even a counterproductive safety behavior that slows down progress?
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Studies (just a small selection):

Culver, N. C., Stoyanova, M., & Craske, M. G. (2011). Clinical relevance of retrieval cues for attenuating context renewal of fear. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 25(2), 284-292.

Dibbets, P., Moor, C., & Voncken, M. J. (2013). The effect of a retrieval cue on the return of spider fear. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 44(4), 361-367.

Dibbets, P., Moor, C., & Voncken, M. J. (2013). The effect of a retrieval cue on the return of spider fear. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 44(4), 361-367.

Shin, K. E., & Newman, M. G. (2018). Using retrieval cues to attenuate return of fear in individuals with public speaking anxiety. Behavior therapy, 49(2), 212-224.

Is it possible to rewrite old traumatic fear memories and thus significantly reduce the suffering of many patients? The discovery of memory reconsolidation suggests that this could be much easier than many researchers have long assumed.  This is because new research has shown that our memory hovers in a changeable, protein synthesis-dependent state after each recall. During this time window, it is possible to “update” the memory through interventions (e.g. preventing protein synthesis with anisomycin). (Nader & Hardt, 2009; Nader, Schafe, & Le Doux, 2000). Our memory is therefore much more modifiable than we realize. This opens up many new possibilities for the psychotherapy of anxiety disorders (panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, social anxiety, phobias, agoraphobia, etc.).

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Studies (just a small selection):  Elsey, J. W., & Kindt, M. (2017). Tackling maladaptive memories through reconsolidation: From neural to clinical science. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 142, 108-117.

Mallet, C., Chick, C. F., Maatoug, R., Fossati, P., Brunet, A., & Millet, B. (2022). Memory reconsolidation impairment using the β-adrenergic receptor blocker propranolol reduces nightmare severity in patients with posttraumatic stress disorder: a preliminary study. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 18(7), 1847-1855.

Pigeon, S., Lonergan, M., Rotondo, O., Pitman, R. K., & Brunet, A. (2022). Impairing memory reconsolidation with propranolol in healthy and clinical samples: a meta-analysis. Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, 47(2), E109-E122.

Soeter, M., & Kindt, M. (2011). Disrupting reconsolidation: pharmacological and behavioral manipulations. Learning & Memory, 18(6), 357-366.

The Power of cogntive reappraisal in anxiety therapy can be very strong. If we find good cognitive reappraisals anxiety can be overcome. For example we can try to speak of protection attacks instead of panic attacks…

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Studies (just a small selection):

Goldin, P. R., Ziv, M., Jazaieri, H., Hahn, K., Heimberg, R., & Gross, J. J. (2013). Impact of cognitive behavioral therapy for social anxiety disorder on the neural dynamics of cognitive reappraisal of negative self-beliefs: randomized clinical trial. JAMA psychiatry, 70(10), 1048-1056.

Goldin, P. R., Manber-Ball, T., Werner, K., Heimberg, R., & Gross, J. J. (2009). Neural mechanisms of cognitive reappraisal of negative self-beliefs in social anxiety disorder. Biological psychiatry, 66(12), 1091-1099.

Goldin, P. R., Ziv, M., Jazaieri, H., Werner, K., Kraemer, H., Heimberg, R. G., & Gross, J. J. (2012). Cognitive reappraisal self-efficacy mediates the effects of individual cognitive-behavioral therapy for social anxiety disorder. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 80(6), 1034.

Kivity, Y., & Huppert, J. D. (2016). Does cognitive reappraisal reduce anxiety? A daily diary study of a micro-intervention with individuals with high social anxiety. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 84(3), 269.

Picó-Pérez, M., Radua, J., Steward, T., Menchón, J. M., & Soriano-Mas, C. (2017). Emotion regulation in mood and anxiety disorders: a meta-analysis of fMRI cognitive reappraisal studies. Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry, 79, 96-104.