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United States of PTSD
Season One: Mental health concerns are on the rise in the United States. This podcast will look at the influencing factors contributing to the decline of our culture. With the rise of school shootings, political divisiveness, increasing levels of hate, and a chronic war of peoples' rights, we have entered a domestic war that never ends. Our podcast will look at whether this is done by design or is it an abject failure. We will discuss it from a clinical and common-sense perspective. Secondarily we will discuss ways to protect yourself from being further traumatized. Hosted by Matthew Boucher LICSW LCDP (licensed in RI) who has over 20 years of experience working with people who have addictions and trauma with a specialty of pregnant/postpartum women. Co-host Wendy Picard is a Learning and Development consultant with 15 years of experience, lifelong observer of the human condition, and diagnosed with PTSD in 1994.
Season Two: Is joined by Donna Gaudette and Julia Kirkpatrick BSW. Julia is currently working on obtaining her MSW and her LCSW. She is a welcome addition to the podcast.
Season Three: Cora Lee Kennedy provided research and worked as a temporary co-host. Dr. Erika Lin-Hendel joins as a co-host for season 3.
United States of PTSD
S4: E 10 AI and Mental Health. Progress or Regression?
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Erika and I discuss the double edge sword of AI. In a world, post covid, with already strained relationships and decreasing social skills do AI chat bots help the lonely?
We talk cognitive offloading and why outsourcing thinking can quietly erode critical thinking, especially in schools and early professional training. I talk about a disturbing early example from the mid 2010s: suicide hotline chatbot pilots and the shrugging attitude around liability if a vulnerable person is harmed. Erika brings in the clinical angle too, from veterinary medicine to education, where AI can be a helpful tool for cross checking and resource gathering, but becomes risky when people stop building the underlying skill.
We discuss the addiction mechanics in social media and dating apps, the rise of fake AI profiles, the temptation to use AI for therapy level support, and the privacy risks of recording sessions to auto generate notes and treatment plans. We also cover ways to rebuild human connection without pretending technology will disappear, like grayscale mode, getting back into third spaces, and choosing focused advocacy that creates real community. We close with a few grounded updates and wins, including land protection news, a slow trust cat relationship, and a recovery story that reminds us why real care matters.
If this made you rethink how you use AI and your phone, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review. What boundary are you willing to try this week?
ChatGPT acted as her therapist for months. It ended in disaster : NPR
Transcript - Do Healthy Relationships To Chatbots Exist?
Bridget Todd and the Business of AI Intimacy
Bridget Todd Doesn’t Trust A.I., But She Told ChatGPT Everything - The New York Times
ChatGPT produces more “lazy” thinkers: Evidence of cognitive engagement decline | SCALE Initiative
ChatGPT produces more “lazy” thinkers: Evidence of cognitive engagement decline | SCALE Initiative
Better Offline
Glp1s
Getting Off with the Luddites | Online Only | n+1 | Sarah Thankam Mathews
Sizia2.9UT.m_Jp
Protesters halt border wall construction across 3 miles in Lochiel | Santa Cruz County | kvoa.com
Omaha's largest public school district stops officers from using electric shock gloves - ABC News
ICE awards $16.7M contract to buy 6,000 pairs of gloves that deliver electric shocks
Kentucky man died after being tased 40 times in jail, lawsuit claims
The Painful Truth of Exactly How ICE’s New Shock Gloves Work | WIRED
Maté, G., & Maté, D. (2022). The myth of normal: Trauma, illness, and healing in a toxic culture. Avery.
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/hartzmann/no-time-to-die
License code: S4CEQWLNQXVZUMU4
Artwork and logo design by Misty Rae.
Special thanks to Joanna Roux for editing help.
Special thanks to the listeners and all the wonderful people who helped listen to and provide feedback on the episode's prerelease.
Please feel free to email Matt topics or suggestions, questions or feedback.
Matt@unitedstatesofPTSD.com
Disclaimers And Warm Welcome
SPEAKER_04This podcast is not intended to serve as therapeutic advice or to replace any professional treatment. These opinions belong to us and do not reflect any company or agency.
SPEAKER_01Hello, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the United States of PTSD. Hello, the amazing Erica. How are you today?
SPEAKER_05I am doing wonderfully today. How are you, the amazing Matthew?
SPEAKER_01I'm great. It's beautiful here today, as a matter of fact. Love it.
SPEAKER_05Um, I do want to share with everyone that Matthew has done a wonderful thing as he uh regularly does to add a little bit of sparkle, and that he renamed our Zoom room, the Dynamic Duo.
SPEAKER_02I did, yes.
SPEAKER_05And it was a delight. So I just want to remind you all like doing things to um verbally affirm and add sparkle to your friends' lives is so accessible and so wonderful. And it relates to some of the things that we're gonna be talking about today as far as it really does.
SPEAKER_01Yeah,
AI And The Connection Trap
SPEAKER_01it really does. I try, you know, I really try to go out of my way to um make people's lives better every day. Like even if it's like simple things like that, like renaming stuff. I mean, I I do try to do that. I we are certainly missing that, and that is gonna be what we talk about today. So, Erica, do you want to introduce the topic?
SPEAKER_05Oh, absolutely. I would love to do so. So we are going to talk a little bit about um artiful, artificial intelligence, uh, language, LLM models. Um, I think it's large language models. I think that's what that that means. Um, don't hold me to any of that because I'm a veterinarian and not um a a computer technologist. Um uh, but in general, I think that we are gonna have lots of things to talk about it. We're gonna cover um the interesting effect of tech companies creating things that result in social isolation, like social media and getting us addicted to our phones, and then selling us the solutions as far as utilizing language models and artificial intelligence to replace that human connection through relationship or therapy or any of these other different AI apps and models that are being created.
SPEAKER_01Erica, as you were talking about that, you know what we should discuss too, because I think it it's very parallel to this right now is you create a problem, then you create the solution, and you keep doing that is the rise of, and we won't do it today, but medications like Ozempic and um how per and again, I don't want to sidetrack on this, so I'm just gonna like bookmark it for like another episode. But I think it's becoming the new opiate crisis. I really do. I mean, there are so many people on it. Um, there's even kids on it, like it's it's outrageous, but I do think we can parallel that to creating a problem and then creating a solution to just make more money off of it. But yes, yeah, AI. And it's the hot topic right now, too, with all like the AI centers that are popping up everywhere. And right.
SPEAKER_05And so we have these other aspects of our consumption and use of large language models and AI is not an isolated thing.
Hidden Costs Behind AI Convenience
SPEAKER_05So it is related to the data centers that have large impacts on local communities as far as sound pollution, water contamination. Um, they have a lot of these data centers are illegally building power plants in them that would like produce incredible amounts of particulate pollution. Um, and these AI models are being utilized for like mass surveillance of population as well as are directly responsible for murdering people in Gaza. That is something that I believe open AI was um involved in. Um, so those are those are going to be beyond the scope of what we talk about, but it's important to understand that like some things that we use that are relatively innocuous, or you could even just look at this as our technology in general, are connected to egregious violations of human rights and in general human liberty. So, for example, uh rare earth metal mining being involved in like child enslavement in other parts of the world that are mining things. So I know that's like a little bit um out of the scope and a little bit wandering, but I do think that it deserves mentioning, saying that like we have to think about, you know, these things that we're doing um with intention to understand the other things that they're interconnected to.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, we we could probably talk about that at a different date, about how it because it's really reminiscent of what Noelle was talking about too, with the flock cameras and how they pop, you know, they're popping up illegally as well and being used for mass surveillance and not really what they're supposed to be for. We're gonna focus today pretty much on the mental health aspect of it and how it's interfering with the way people are relating to other people and how it's creating more isolation. So what's what's your what was your first, I don't know, like experience with AI or like how did it how did it come to your knowledge?
First Encounters With Language Models
SPEAKER_05It actually came up in an interpersonal relationship. So my previous partner um is uh linguist or or interested in language as a component of like mathematics and like computing. Um and um I or at least that's my understanding of it, it could be a little bit uh uh inaccurate. Um so he was very much involved in like testing out these models when they were first getting started and interacting with them and seeing what they could do. And we kind of have this kind of discussion within our home and within our relationship about like this is also early on where like the environmental impact is being deeply discussed. And and you know, there are things about like the watery usage that are not as um dire as people describe, it just depends on what community that you're part of. Um so like we would get in these discussions of where he would be like, oh, it has the potential to do this, and like actually like the potential of being like a friend or a therapist or a social relationship. Um for people who might struggle with that, um, especially neurodiverse individuals, um, and you know, like that um is it was always a larger ethical discussion. Um, and I think that it's a tool, and I think there are things that are that AI is like really, really good at, and also there's so many ethical discussions and also like the efforts anytime like the government is trying to remove the state's ability to put restrictions and guardrails on something, be very, very critical. And also be like not okay with that. That's kind of one of those things. Anytime the state is like, we want to remove the guardrails, it's a it's a it's a bad idea. You're muted.
SPEAKER_01Sorry about that. Yeah. One of the articles that you I didn't get a chance to read it, but one of the articles that we're gonna put on the show notes talked about the lack of critical thinking as a result of AI and AI usage. So I think anytime you see something becoming hugely talked about, like AI centers or the use of AI when the government is trying to push something as something good, that we really have to be suspicious of that because we've seen it play out over and over again. And of course, everything that's coming out is going to support the positive aspects of AI and they're going to downplay the negative parts of it because that's what they do with everything.
Cognitive Offloading And Screen Schooling
SPEAKER_05Well, also um things happen with time, right? And so when we when we talk about and and the term for the audience to kind of explore further um to formulate their own opinions, which is something that is really important to do and cross-verify, um, is cognitive offloading, right? So there is a process in learning and also an interpersonal relationship as well of trust building and getting through difficulty or friction or challenge that is very uniquely important for your brain, um, and to activate like different circuitry and patterns and integration and integration of knowledge and memory. Um, that is because our brains are um we don't even understand them fully, we'll put it that way. Uh, you know, so that's from my background of um, you know, as a developmental neuroscientist. Um that's past life, still current life never quite leaves you, kind of thing. Um, but those are things that we don't have a long a good understanding of. And it's only recently that people have understand the consequence or starting to understand the consequence of um using screens as a replacement for human interaction for learning, right? And and we're starting to regret some of the decisions of having a screen for every child in in every school, right? In the United States for that. And and so a lot of these things people will judge the the fad component of that is really not critically um discussed uh in a lot of like mass communication uh conversations happening about this.
SPEAKER_01Sure. I you know, I think the other social aspect of this is there's there's a uh pressure to comply and conform. And you you know, we see this with everything. When a new, like say a new parenting trend comes out and they talk about a way that you should be working with your kids, and then everybody starts to do it because there's a pressure among other people if you're not doing it. And I think we see that over and over again. Do you know who Gabor Mate is? Yes, I'm sure you do, right? So I'm reading his book. Um, I just started it. It's called The Myth of Normal. Have you started have you read that?
SPEAKER_05Oh, I have not, but for the audience, Gabor Mate is a doctor um and a Holocaust survivor who is and is also very pro-Palestine, by the way. Yes, who speaks deeply about trauma, about intergenerate trauma, intergenerational trauma, um, an advocacy of compassion and human rights in like a very um like there are some things that uh some of his books that I have I feel like he could have done a little bit better. Also, his um his son has a wonderful podcast um called Bad Hasbara that I oh, I'll have to listen to that because he he's phenomenal.
SPEAKER_01And I it's funny you say that because there are some parts of his work with addiction, like the verbiage that he uses that I'm not super fond of. But I do want to just kind of this is in the book New Normal, and I'll I mean I'm not new normal, the myth of normal. And I will put the book in the references, but he says uh late stage capitalism is expert in catering to the sense of present moment dread. So kind of what you were talking about, like not the use of being escaping, right? So like always wanting to be in something because you don't want to be in the present. And what I really like about this book, I mean, I haven't, I've just started reading it, but he also very much highlights that we are like society is is failing, basically. Like the the amount of trauma that people have in this country, he also argues that most people
Trauma Culture And Present Moment Dread
SPEAKER_01have trauma because of the way our society is, which is why I started the podcast in the beginning, right? So and it's I don't think it's it's specific to just the United States. I mean, it happens like everywhere, but I think we're certainly one of the worst ones at it. Um, you know, so I know with the way I
Suicide Hotline Chatbots And Liability
SPEAKER_01was first exposed to AI, this is over a decade ago, and I think I actually mentioned it on a podcast probably in like season two, maybe. So I had gone to a place called the New England School of Addiction Studies, and that is it's it's like a weekend place that's usually hosted at a college campus that's done for uh addiction specialists, and it's a weekend of CEUs. You go to different trainings, and we had there were like seminars that if you had a scholarship, you had to go to, and I had a scholarship for the program. So I went to this seminar, and it was about the use of AI chatbots for suicide hotlines because there was a this was again, this was before COVID. It was, I want to say 20, 2014, 2015. There was a um a decrease in the amount of people who were working at suicide hotlines, and there was a huge increase in the amount of people who were attempting suicide and using the services. So they had piloted this um like AI chatbot that would they could talk to. And what I found very disturbing about this, again, and I think this is just lack of critical thinking and and pressure to conform and just say, like, yes, it's a great idea, because like experts are talking about it, was they implied that the data suggested the people who were using it did better because they felt like they could relate more to the chat bot and that it was helping them to like not commit suicide. So everybody's like, oh wow, that's great, that's great. And of course, the first thing that goes through my mind is no, that's not, because it's it's now basically saying when people are that depressed that they're suicidal, they also often feel disconnected from people, they feel disconnected from society, and they feel alone. So now you're saying that the thing they have the closest relationship with and that's helping the most is an AI chatbot that then further makes them separated from human connection. Like and they didn't think that. They were just like, oh, that's great. And I remember asking the question, who's liable then? So if if somebody who's suicidal is using this like program and it makes them worse so they commit suicide, like who's liable? And the response was basically, well, they were going to commit suicide anyway. So like this is just uh Oh my god. Yeah, I no, I know, right? And everybody was just like, oh, this is great.
SPEAKER_00And I'm like, how are people not thinking about this? How are people thinking like this is great? It's not.
SPEAKER_05So when oh gosh, hang on a second. Um, so so there are a couple of parallels that I see across all these things, both with the education, with mental health, with like socialization, right? We're for example, like Meta, we have like social media companies in general, like Meta had this what $17 billion settlement very recently, um around youth mental health, right? And this concept of like how algorithms work, and like you were saying, like connections to addiction and like the actual profit model and the profit model of AI or any of these social or online tools are basically to keep you on them as long as possible, keep you engaged with this dialogue and reliant as much as possible. So, addiction models are are very good with this and this this concept of
Addiction Design Social Media Dating Apps
SPEAKER_05um immediacy. So having an immediate answer versus going on a knowledge-seeking path that has a little bit more friction, or being able to understand that like not all human relationship is going to be um like kissing your bum, you know, like that that like people have to understand how to navigate disagreement, friction, interpersonal friction, and challenge, and also giving somebody support and holding that, having the patience of being supportive for someone that is really struggling over time, right? If we're if we are also leading into these circuits, you know, just getting sycophantic responses um from a language model, and then we want to hold our other human relationships to that, like it's not gonna happen because humans have differences in opinion and different emotional arcs. And you're just reinforcing things to continue to move people away from the complexity of human social interaction in general.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I want to go back to what you said about the addictive element of it too. And and I again, I'm just gonna put this in there as a note for the listeners when we do talk about this so they can they can hear this. Is you you brought up Meta and the lawsuit against them, and Meta knew that what they were doing was creating addiction, particularly among teenagers and young people, then they're fully aware of that, which is very similar to what Purdue did with the opiate crisis when they knew it was addicting and they were lying about it and telling everybody that it wasn't addicting. Um, and again, now we have this Ozempic thing. So I just want to put that like bug in everybody's ear, but also dating sites, right? So dating sites are also notoriously they use gambling techniques. So they'll have things like uh, you know, spin this wheel to get like extra this, or like they use the same mechanics. They make money off not getting you connected with other people. That's exact and that that's what they do. And there's this overwhelming amount of AI fake profiles on dating websites that a lot of them don't address because it keeps people engaged, and you're engaging with these people who just don't exist, right? So, like we see it time and time again when things are being pushed to use that the people who are doing it, the companies behind it, are fully aware of the negative side effects that are coming down the road and they just deny it. And
Gen Z Going Offline Modern Luddites
SPEAKER_01AI is a great example of this.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Um I I just I just realized the uh another thing that I wanted to um share of this group um in New York that is getting kicked off. That's a uh younger.
SPEAKER_01Did you say that's getting kicked out? Is that what you're saying?
SPEAKER_05No, that's getting kicked off or that's getting started.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's getting started.
SPEAKER_05Um, and it is um about getting offline. Um, and it is a Gen Z movement. So a lot of the leaders, I think, are like in some of them are in high school or new graduates. Um, and it's about the modern Luddite movement. Um, so in general, um, so I'm gonna add another note in our text thing that will be added to the show notes. Um the hilarious thing is they they have um in an interview, a podcast interview that I listened to, they had like a puppet as their representative, and it was absolutely delightful. Um, but so in general, I think so so for me personally, like I don't really use
Helpful AI Uses Without Overreliance
SPEAKER_05AI. Um, and I try and um reduce the amount, like sometimes it is useful because it can be useful for like pulling knowledge from like a large library of information. So that is something that is useful. Um, a big critique at it right now is that like you have to have that expertise in order to critically evaluate it. So like I use um there's AI um in my work life, AI that's used um for like radiology. Um, and that can be very helpful because, you know, like if you're a general practitioner and you don't have and and you're looking at something, it can be helpful, or like a young grad, for example, it can be helpful to cross-check your own skills. Um, but it definitely makes mistakes. And there are definitely things that are like absolutely not that is not appropriate. And so you have to use it. Like I have had situations where because I also I read my own radiographs, like, and I will like look at so for example, when brand is like signal pet or other things, I'll cross reference and reference it sometimes. Um, but I don't rely on it. And um, I have had circumstances where there are other um clinicians that are overly reliant on that or sending out radiographs and they can. be a delay time and and I have seen that impact um patient care. Um uh and yeah like you know and also sometimes um how it is uh impacting costs so sometimes it can be helpful because it can like we not all general practitioners have access to you know uh a boarded radiologist right so overall I do think that in increases quality of care because it assists um information that hasn't necessarily been available to low access to care areas or just like more rural areas. Um but we have to be critical about it because I am seeing younger people in my field not have the critical thinking skills um to critically review and not engage in their own empowerment as clinicians. So this cognitive low offloading is like really concerning for me as an educator um in the medical field. But also I see there are really useful method, you know, really useful things for it.
SPEAKER_01Very deliberate and specific right I I would I agree with you on that. So I think there are two things that we both agree are good uses of AI from what you said. Because I see it on an academic level and I see it on a therapy level when people are using AI. The to gather resources I think it's great at so if you want so if I wanted to say find me 10 resources like a card catalog if I wanted to find 10 resources for uh the use of CBT and addiction I could just hit it and boom I get all these resources. So I think it's really great for stuff like that. And then anything that doesn't really give personal information. So I mentioned to you earlier I use it for gardening. I mean I have all of these exotic tropical plants now so I've been taking pictures of them and uploading them and it'll say like okay repot it or like use this or use that. So it's a lot I I think easier to use it for things like that. But people are using it for things that as you said are highly personal and it certainly does make mistakes. I've been using it a lot because I want to be good at detecting it. I know we we've talked about this before but at least in the past four or five years I've caught probably 20 students using AI to write papers. And some of them have just been like really like one class, I'm not even kidding four students wrote used AI to write a paper about themselves. I mean when you talk about the level of laziness and lack of critical thinking if you can't write a paper about yourself without using AI, that's a real problem. And you I think that is when it becomes an issue is that when people are losing critical thinking skills and kind of using it just to get by, now these people are in theory going to be clinicians responsible for other people's mental health.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_01And if they can't even put in the effort to do that, it does concern me about where that's going. And I know some of the on an academic level some of the pushback we've gotten is well it's like calculators it's not going anywhere so you have to get used to it. Yeah I get that I do get that there's good uses for it. And certainly if people are putting in their papers that they used AI to like proofread their paper, I'm fine with that, right? Because I mean we use spell check and all of all things like that as long as it doesn't contain any sort of confidential information because God only knows what AI is doing with that. But you know I think that's one thing but it again to come to just say like well it's here so we have to deal with it, I don't know that that's a great great answer because there should be some sort of limit to what it can and can't do academically. And then on a mental health aspect I know you would say you don't see this as much in veterinarian care, but clients and I I've heard more and more clients now going on to and not just my clients like clients in general using AI to say like okay how do I address this particular problem? Now I've thrown in some fake like fake made up clients into AI to see like what it would tell me to do if I was that person.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And certainly there are some things that come out of there that are healthy and there are things that I think any reasonable and prudent clinician would also do. But there's also information that comes out of there that is not accurate and can sometimes be um misleading you had mentioned it it's kind of like got this like sycophancy to it and it does it it it certainly does. But it also doesn't have you figure if I if you're my client and I've been working with you for like say 10 years, I like AI does not have all of the nuances of those 10 years to actually understand who you are. So the information it's getting is is not going to be as accurate as a human connection with somebody else.
Book Scraping Paper Libraries Cursive
SPEAKER_05Yeah I so one of the things that I've been um coming across lately is this discussion it's it's a discussion between like um a skill versus utilizing a tool right and um in general a lot of uh cognitive scientists and neuroscientists have uh especially when we're talking about education are kind of pointing out this you have to do the cognitive work to learn the skill so then you can utilize a tool with knowledge right and so in general like how I have observed um this and I I think I would probably be more on like a Luddite side of things because in general like for me in tech like I would rather be out in nature outside and like not interacting with technology. And I also understand its utility and also understand that there are sacrifices with stuff. And I also have the critical understanding to like no not anthropomorphize AI. So one of the things that's happening is that because of the uh creative license violations that happen so basically AI has been had like harvested like the labor of humanity and we have these things where for example they're buying large amounts of books and just basically destroying them like basically inputting them into training models and then destroying them.
SPEAKER_01So please keep your paper libraries if you come across oh can I can I can I add to that really because it's funny that you mentioned this because I was thinking about this earlier before we we even spoke. I've actually gone back to buying paper copies for books. So I have a friend who wrote a book years ago oh God was the name of it um Toxic States of America I think it was and I had asked him why he didn't put it on Kindle and he had said first of all he the it he had said the name Kindle if you think about it Kindle Kindling right burning like book burning um which I thought I never put two and two together. And he said once we get rid of paper copies and once it's all on electronics not only do they have access to everything meaning they can change it and alter it and nobody's ever going to have the original copy anymore. And I saw I I was reminded of this because I went to the bank recently and you know you have to sign they have those pens that you have to sign your name. So and you know how terrible they are sometimes so I tried to write my signature and it looked like garbage and I was like oh my god that's like the worst signature I ever like have done and she said oh don't worry about it she's like most people can't even don't even know how to sign their name anymore and I said seriously she's like yeah she's like I I it's only like your generation and up that knows how to sign their names everybody else is just kind of like handwriting it which if you think about like all the older documents they're all written in cursive so we have now taught a whole all of the generations how not to read cursive anymore. So they're not going to be able to read these documents that can then be easily altered you know it it's a huge problem. I mean it's it's so if you don't know cursive I I would suggest you go out and learn cursive seriously because we need to not um allow that stuff to happen. And I I'm so glad you said that about the books and getting hard copies because we do we need to we need to start doing that. I'm ordering more and more hard copy books now.
SPEAKER_05Yeah and and community basically community libraries and and maintaining knowledge I think it's really important um and like ways that we maintain like human relationships. So like I I am I feel very lucky to be in the profession that I am because it is all about relationship and it's also about interspecies relationship. So in general I don't have um I get the opportunity to have very meaningful social interactions with people of all types and stages across life right with the exception of the people who choose to uh hire other people to bring their animals in that is a very unique experience and um you know just something that I'm gonna drop a note as far well I've never heard of that before people hire other people to bring in their animals oh yeah like a Uber no like staff like they have you know like the the the person who takes care or maintains the household or takes care of the kids or oh I get it like a nanny right or you know it it varies right but um uh so you know I I think that understanding how to socially interact with other people and growing your ability to socially interact with people is really important because it also trains your body and your mind to deal with unpredictable situations. And I think with chat GPT or some of these language models, A, there's like a personification happening that like doesn't actually it's not like real. And it's really about the data that is has been utilized in the training and um you know there's this tech term called there um an insidification that I still love this term.
SPEAKER_02I just heard I freaking love it. I'm gonna start using it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah no it's really it's really important because it's this model of they get people in to use the software right it's a very general term you know uh new software is developed or new tool is developed people are able to use it for free because they want to get people hooked to utilizing it in their life and then they jack up the price and then they also in order to um increase profits they they proceed to make it shittier right this is this is like more it's a commentary on capitalism and the capitalistic cycle um but uh it is something that has been termed specifically for tech and with AI because there are other places that people are um removing AI's access to be able to scrape information that um it starts to get very circular. This is why we see like AI writing have these very particular patterns like it's not this it's that or like that's by the way that's that's how I that's how I catch a lot of people too because it does have those patterns of listing things that don't exist like that aren't present. You know yeah or just just like some of the AI writing it's also very like it's also very I notice this also like in influencer circles um as well because they're trying to hook like it's like the very basic like hook line and sinker kind of like trying to uh dramatize things. And I don't know maybe that means that I'm a what like I just think it's over like I find overly dramatic content um to be overly formulatic formulaic and boring to me like instead of being exciting and engaging it's like makes me want to I don't know throw something uh into the garbage can I try to crumble something up and throw it into the garbage can I totally get it yeah um but yeah I I think so like I think the the important thing is to have
Rebuilding Human Skills Beyond Phones
SPEAKER_05conversations so like what what can we do right as individuals number one I would say think about your personal relationships and how you engage in them and like this is also like as you and I are both people who grew up during an era where phones were not a thing. And then you know I remember distinctly like because this was college um you know college and graduate school where this was happening um I like people watching so it was definitely a point where I would look around and I see everyone on their phones, right? And um I definitely have certain periods of time um where I have engaged in my electronic device as a way to like you know where it has interfered with connecting. There were other reasons around that in reflection right there were other reasons where I was like okay like this this disconnection is happening and like so I have other work to do and I can do that on my phone, right? And so it's I think it's important to listen to that and understand what your relationship is to technology and how it either interferes or enhances with your interpersonal relationships and with your relationship with knowledge and learning and your own brain.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So your so one of the things that you're suggesting is that I and I think we both have talked about this is that there are some good uses to it but you have to be really cognizant about your relationships with people and maintaining those relationships with people and not letting the AI stuff or the phones. Phones is a great example I mean you talk about addiction I mean we carry it with us everywhere right we have it for everything like we use it when we're happy use it when we're sad we use it to self-soothe we use it to distract ourselves right so it can't replace people it can't I mean not not to the same level I mean certainly you can replace it for here and there but we're losing skills as a society to interact with people. And I think anybody who's listening to this podcast has probably seen it on some level whether it's with your own friends or whether it's with interactions you have with strangers at like stores. You know Erica you had talked about seeing everybody on their phone and I mean it's true.
SPEAKER_05I mean I've certainly been guilty of that myself um we all are because it it's it's addicting and they know that yeah you know so to use it responsibly and mindfully well so in addition to like just starting to critically think about your own relationship with it engage in discussion with people in your life um there are also other things like there are ways to uh like um experiment and and engage in curiosity to how to change things so for example there's a way that you can make your phone go grayscale right and you can see how the colors and the bright colors and those things are are also drawing your attention and feeding like certain dopamine circuits. And you know those things are also intimately related with motivation and interest right and and attention um I think you know doing things to keep yourself in your body right and like doing things with your hands or going outside and and and drawing attention to other things and more subtle experiences or things that take a longer time to learn about and enjoy I think those are really that's a really rich part of the human experience and also sharing them with other people. I think you know thinking about uh meeting people in third spaces and and making new friends and doing activities that don't involve technology are really important because human beings fundamentally like we're animals.
SPEAKER_01Yeah social creatures we're social mammals.
SPEAKER_05Yeah where are what what other kind of things do you feel like are important for us
AI Gaslighting Therapy Notes Privacy Risks
SPEAKER_05to kind of discuss around this around human connection.
SPEAKER_01Particularly with mental health you know I want to back up everything you said we need to create and foster more living connections with people right that are not just screens. I also want to warn people out there about using AI for mental health stuff because it it certainly can be dangerous. It is biased towards certain things and I don't even mean just uh telling people what they want to hear. I think we talked about this before I get into a discussion about what was happening like with genocide and it certainly was minimizing all of the the the points about genocide and I had to keep proving it wrong over and over and over again and almost like trap it because one of the things that AI is notorious for is gaslighting it it will tell you one thing and then it will tell you it didn't say that. And again I've been using it full nerd disclosure here I'm just gonna be honest about this I also I used to have a gaming group when I lived in Rhode Island for like Dungeons and Dragons role playing game. And when I moved to Connecticut because I'm in the middle of nowhere talk about being isolated I can't get anybody to play so I've also been using it as like a DM to kind of see what it does in that sense. And it totally tries to gaslight me all the time all the time and I have to like literally screenshot and upload things to be like no you actually did say this and it's like oops I did type of thing. So don't use it for mental health because this is just something that is for fun. Like it's it's a game it's not even like I'm not giving it any personal information or anything. And it's gaslighting me on that. And I have noticed it does have a tendency to remember details that are more important about the individual than the circumstances. It's more likely to remember and I've seen this from the fake like client that I put in it's more likely to remember details about the that client's uh history and past than it is for me to say something like stop listing things in the negative it'll keep forgetting to do that. So I don't know I I'm very leery with what they're doing with that information too. The other thing I didn't mention earlier is I use a uh an EMR for my uh for my notes. So for everybody who if you don't know what that is, it's electronic medical record. They have tried to sell me and one of my colleagues used it an app that lets you record the session I mean obviously with the client's consent and then it it types up the note and then it types up what you did and then it helps you come up with treatment plans. And I know she did it and she really liked it and she was telling me about it. I'm like I am never going to use that for for a couple of reasons. Number one, I don't trust that the information that is being used, I don't care if it's HIPAA compliant, I don't care what people say about it, I mean I don't trust that that information isn't being used for uh nefarious purposes. I just don't we have seen this time and time again things get breached our data gets leaked leaked um you know or like compromised and then they have all this information about people. So I won't use it for just that on its own. But then on top of that I think again we're talking about people getting lazier. So you don't even have to write your notes you don't even have to write what you did in terms of therapeutic skills you don't have to even write treatment goals because it's just going to do it all for you. So then what's the point of having a therapist there? And that's what the argument is going to be down the road. And if you don't have skilled and trained therapists and this is true for any profession that can do it without relying on AI then your position is going to be useless and it's it's not a good thing.
Self Checkout Surveillance And Boycotts
SPEAKER_01You know it's like um this is a little bit off topic but it's it's it's related self-checkouts. I refuse to use self-checkouts. As a matter of fact if they if they don't have a cash person I like working the register I won't even shop there. I'll like leave I'll put my stuff down and leave because one it gets rid of people's jobs which I am all about supporting people having jobs but we also know that um I don't remember where this was this was it was right after COVID where um they were starting to uh charge people if they were scanning stuff and they accidentally didn't scan stuff did you hear about this? I forgot when it was they were like they were like charging them with theft because they like misscanned something or they didn't scan something and it wasn't scenarios where people were actually trying to steal stuff. So it it just creates more ways for whoever it is like whatever corporation, company, government, big brother, whatever it is going to exploit it And then use it against you.
SPEAKER_05Oh, side side note, there are plans to utilize these like facial tracking things. And I think we mentioned it facial tracking things in stores to go after our neighbors, our I mean that that's if that's another reason that you need to not shop at Walmart, who chooses explicitly to pay uh people poorly, so it is subsidized. It's like part of the billionaire subsidizing. If if that's a you know that that should help shop local, focus on your local markets and um direct economy as much as possible because they are going to utilize those types of um methods to squeeze whichever populations. It's it's a way that the government can get around um surveillance and privacy issues by working with private companies so they can get around it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And if you have to shop at Walmart, I mean, obviously, because they do have, I mean, there are some people who are unfortunately financially bound to shop at places like Walmart.
SPEAKER_05So it's the only store in the area.
SPEAKER_01Or it's the only store in the area. So outside of that, I mean, certainly you can't be responsible for that if you can't afford it, or if you have to drive like 60 miles to go to like a different store. But if you if you have the privilege to not shop at Walmart or any of the like Starbucks or like any of the places that either support genocide or support getting rid of people's rights, don't shop there. Like I'm so sick of it. Like I people need to start taking more accountability for what they're doing, which I think is another thing that's missing from our country. I do. It's just it's the convenience. It's you know, people are like, oh, well, it's more convenient to go there. I it's out of sight, out of mind. I don't have to worry about it. It's so frustrating.
SPEAKER_05I mean, it's the same kind of mentality as far as like AI, AI is super convenient, that their convenience comes at a cost, right? Um, and I
Choosing Boundaries And Focused Advocacy
SPEAKER_05I hope that um people feel a little bit more um equipped to explore the information that's out there and learn um about the things that are important to them about this particular topic, and that it empowers the audience to both um make informed decisions for themselves about how they want to navigate the use of these tools because they are here, right? They are here and most likely they are not going to go away, but it doesn't mean that we can't very specifically tune our relationship to them. And also, you know, if you choose that this is an area of advocacy work that you want to engage in, oh my gosh, it's very relevant and very I know we've said this before, Erica, and I just want to say this again to the listeners.
SPEAKER_01We don't like I mean, Erica and I are both really active in what we do, but we we can't take on every issue either. So I mean, we are certainly not telling people to go take on everything. It's whatever you excite you, number one, because if something excites you and you're passionate about it, you're more likely to make positive changes. And you know, just pick a couple of things that you can take on and take those things on. Just, you know, make sure you're doing something. And there's so many things now with uh what's going on with our food, you know, AI centers, like uh immigrant, like the way that we're we're treating people who are immigrating, like like all of these things are going on right now. Genocide, like everything. So you just gotta pick something and say, like, okay, this is gonna be my issue. This is what I'm gonna take head on.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and if so, um in those spaces, I can say that for me, some of the most um nourishing and enriching interpersonal relationships that I have and have formed are in community navigating these type of issues because when you get together with other people to um engage in some form of community protection, because that's what all of these things are, right? All of these are engaging in some sort of protecting people, protecting environment, protecting land. Um, it is really um, I mean, I think that it it provides purpose, and I think that human beings overall um that engage in taking action to protect something that is important to them in community, that that is something that's very like nervous system, um mental health, emotional, like as very um satisfying.
SPEAKER_01So we have certainly given everybody stuff to think about. Uh did you have any before we we wrap up, did you have any updates you want to give about something? Because I had two that I forgot about, like either in like local updates or anything.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. So uh, did we talk about this? There are these um 200-year-old cottonwood trees that were being torn down um at the border. Um, it's a very like specific ecosystem. So, right now, what's going on in Border Trents? There's stuff being discussed at like Big Bend um in Texas. That's like Big
Community Action As Mental Health
SPEAKER_05Bend National Park and our national parks being under assault in general. And these are public lands, these are these belong to us collectively. So these are a resource that are are being impacted um sometimes most much for the benefit of private corporations at times. Um, but yeah, in Lokiel, there's a group of organizers um and land protectors that have been doing a trace that their uh Instagram handle is Rally for the Valley. Um, if you look it up and look for discussions on Lokiel, they have a fundraiser. Um they recently had some interactions with large groups of Border Patrol all masked up, coming to try and intimidate them, kind of on from both sides of the road. Um, but as of yet, they're still holding strong. Um and that's something that I care a lot about. I was able to bring some supplies
Borderlands Updates Trees And Shock Gloves
SPEAKER_05down there not too long ago and visit with them. Um I would say if you're in an area in which there's environmental protection that needs to be happening, that's probably one of the most important things that we need people to be engaged in because land, water, um, like pollution are these are things that are going to get all of us at some point, right? But we can't continue to have these other dialogues if we are not having sustainable environments.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So if do you have an article you can send me on that and then I can add it to the yes, I can.
SPEAKER_05And so that's kind of the main thing about here. The other thing, the big discussions around here, because of course, all borderland states we have increased militarization. So these recent reports of ice um getting a bunch of these electric shock gloves. Um these are actually items. This is I came across this recently on another podcast. Like these are items that have been used on our incarcerated populations. Um, there's actually also a school in Oklahoma that was using, I think it's Oklahoma, that was using it on kids. What? Yep. Um my god. So that's something as an update to like talk about like the this this like um yeah, that's I would say if there are two main things that if you don't if you feel like you have the strength to pay attention to, understanding what has been going on in prisons and how that like the prison population and incarcerate like incarcerated people are the first place where these things are deployed, and then sometimes schools and the so so these gloves that we're like people are shocked about, like these already have been utilized in people in this country for a while. They've been beta tested, and so they're being going to be used more on the border, again, where we have militarization on the border that border communities are already experiencing. I think it's really important if you're not close to a border to understand that, or if you're not close to an area where people are incarcerated, like to understand that our carceral system is private corporations, and it's a method of moving money from taxpayers into corporations. Um, I think that's really important.
SPEAKER_01Unbelievable. Yes. Okay. So please send me the link.
SPEAKER_03Uh a little bit of a topic shift those are my updates.
SPEAKER_01I think I I have one really like update about my situation, and then I have a cute update that I think will be. Yes, that's another cute job.
SPEAKER_05That was a big thing to drop, but I think it's important.
Men’s Group Complaint And System Maze
SPEAKER_01So it's a totally cute update. So the situation with that men's group, I think I I don't know if I had mentioned I did finally get a hold of the attorney general. Did I tell you this?
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_05Uh I don't know if that came out. Yeah, no, I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_01So I did I did get a hold of the attorney general, and uh the system is just so like screwed up. So the attorney general told me to call the bar association because they're like, oh, it's more this is more for them. And I'm like, I did call the bar association, they told me to call the attorney general's office, and they were like, oh, well, they tell everybody that, but it's really their job. And I'm like, this is just like nonsense. You know what I mean? It's it's um it's a maze. It's a maze of stupid, and they they do they do it on purpose to make it obviously more difficult for anybody to do anything. So what I'm currently thinking about doing, because I'm not getting anywhere, and I think I told you the response from the organization was very victim-blaming. It was like, um, sorry, not sorry, we didn't do anything wrong, we did do something wrong, sorry, we're all volunteers, which, you know, if you're a volunteer, it doesn't give you the it doesn't give you the excuse to do a half-assed job and put people at risk, um, which is just the excuse it's always been. So I think what I'm doing is I track down a local newspaper uh that's um for that particular area. I think I'm just gonna go to them and be like, hey, do you guys want to do an interview?
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Because like them the story. I think that's reasonable. Because it's very relevant for local news.
SPEAKER_01It really is. And I've just I've just had it with their, they're really going to hurt somebody at some point in time, and they just don't care. And if their whole attitude is like, well, we're volunteers, then don't do it. You know, go volunteer somewhere else. Yeah. You know what I mean? So, anyway, that's the that's the update on that. But the um the cute update
The Stray Cat Trust Story
SPEAKER_01is I don't think I told you about the stray cat that moved in under my deck. I didn't tell you the story, did I?
SPEAKER_03Oh.
SPEAKER_01So I had two barn cats that came with the house um when I moved here. And um one of them passed away. Um, I'm assuming she passed away uh like a year ago. She just she disappeared, wasn't looking that great, came back, disappeared again, and never came back. Um, but anyway, so this other cat moved in under my under my porch two years ago. And I took a picture of the cat and I uploaded it to our local Facebook group and I said, Does anybody recognize this? And one of my neighbors was like, Oh, I was feeding that cat um for a while, but the cat disappeared. And I was like, Okay, like cat's now you know living in my house, which is fine. So two years, Erica, I have been feeding this cat, and the outside barn cat didn't the one that I had left, didn't like the cat. So one cat would be at this door, the other cat would be at that door, and for two years I would feed them. Um, so now I'm able to pet it two years later. I couldn't, I couldn't get near it for the longest time, and this has been the slowest, slowest building relationship I think I've ever had with the cat.
SPEAKER_05It's but and so rewarding, huh?
SPEAKER_01So rewarding. So now I have to trap the cat to bring it to the vet because I want to make sure that it it doesn't have feline leukemia because it's it's uh it's hanging out with the outside cat now.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um and just get it at shots. I do believe it was a trap and release because it has the um clipping on its ear.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01So I think it it was probably like fixed and given shots at one point. And the cat's also missing its um whatever its canines on the bottom. But I didn't want to trap the cat the week I started being able to pet it.
SPEAKER_02Right. I'm like, I don't think that's a good idea.
SPEAKER_01So I've been able to pet it for a couple weeks now, and so I think I'm gonna trap it and take it to the vet and then uh see what happens with that. So that's the good news.
SPEAKER_05Good. I'm I'm glad. I so I I should also say something like positive. Yes. Um hang on, let me think about it. Um oh
A Dog Recovers And We Close
SPEAKER_05I had a case. Um there was a dog that had a surgical complication from another um pla from another place that um I was supporting the dog with this adorable um blind dog. And there was concern that um we were not sure if she was going to regain function of her that limb. And she did. Oh, nice. Um uh at and everyone cheering. So like we had, oh gosh, there were three different doctors involved in this animal's care and recovery from this situation, and um, of course, like multiple staff and multiple people who were additionally invested and cheering this dog on through its recovery. Uh, and like all of us are like in tears, joyful about the fact that um she's um walking along just fine. Oh, that's awesome. So happy about that. I love that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, all right. Good stories, happy stories. Okay, so we will we will end with those. And um, I all of the listeners out there wish you a great couple of weeks and uh take care. Thank you for listening as always.
SPEAKER_03Bye!
People on this episode
Matthew Boucher LICSW LCDP
Host
Donna Gaudette
Co-host
Dr. Erika Lin-Hendel
Co-host
Julia Kirkpatrick
Co-host
Wendy Picard
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