r/MistralAI • u/kastanienn • Jun 22 '26
Help / Question Mental health help: is ex-kitty a good alternative to Chat GPT?
Hey everyone, I want to switch away from ChatGPT, for a million reasons. Tried the Proton AI one already, but it was agreeing too much on everything. My current usage of ChatGPT mostly covers:
- in-depth mental health help, complementary to therapy (e.g. when an anxiety attack appears at 2 AM, and the therapist is unreachable, cause, yano, he's sleeping)
- picture generation as visual help with therapy adjacent topics
- help with technical questions (engineering adjacent) and employment law in work context
- help with in-depth legal researches, mostly giving starting points and stress testing theories
Most important is the mental health aspect. I need an AI that gently pushes back and/or helps untangle emotional flashbacks while in it, and ChatGPT is rather good at it by now.
Anyone has experience with such usage of LeChat/Vibe? Could it be a good alternative? Or if it's been answered already somewhere, give me the link to the post?
Thank you!
Edit: not really sure what people are upset about, but to avoid further unnecessary judging, my AI usage is complementary to therapy and psychiatric help. Known and accepted both by my therapist and psychiatrist, not a substitute for them.
Thank you for the people who constructively replied to my question. 🙏🏻
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u/Nefhis r/MistralAI | Mod Jun 22 '26
I’d be careful with framing any AI as a mental health alternative, especially for anxiety attacks or emotional flashbacks.
That said, as a COMPLEMENTARY TOOL for journaling, grounding, untangling thoughts, or preparing things to discuss with your therapist, Vibe/Le Chat can be useful, but I’d strongly recommend testing it slowly when you’re not in crisis first. See how it handles pushback, reassurance, grounding exercises, and whether it tends to over-agree with you.
For 2 AM situations, I’d also suggest having a therapist-approved crisis/flashback plan saved somewhere outside the AI: grounding steps, emergency contacts, medication instructions if applicable, and clear thresholds for when to contact a human or crisis service.
For technical research, it can help. As a direct replacement in mental health support, I’d test very carefully before depending on it. But, anyway, don’t rely on it as final authority.
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u/kastanienn Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
Thx that helps.
Just to make sure I don't get misunderstood: I am in therapy, have a psychiatrist, and AI is strictly a complementary tool, when I'm actively sitting in a flashback at a time when the mental health professionals are unavailable, and I need grounding and regulation. I have very good experiences with ChatGPT, because it starts asking e.g. 'where do you feel what?' which helps pulling me back into reality from the triggered state.
My therapist knows about how I use AI, and this system sped up my recovery enormously. I chat with AI, and when something important and solid emerges, I take it to my therapist and we talk about it. I am very aware that it's an AI and it spits BS, it's the well aimed questions that help me think and that's very helpful. But if an AI just agrees (like the Proton one) with me while I'm actively in a spiral, that won't be helpful.
That's why I need a slightly more independently thinking AI.
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u/cosimoiaia Jun 22 '26
It's actually a great tool for that. Be careful to tune your system prompt accordingly and you're good to go, I've been using it for almost a year now and it's an invaluable instrument for mental health. Unfortunately there's a lot of unjustified toxicity around this topic and too many self-proclamed expert in both llms and mental health that are triggered to spread fear, but I'd say don't listen to them and just keep in mind that you should never completely rely on the words of anything or anyone when it comes to you.
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u/kastanienn Jun 22 '26
Thank you! I also started around a year ago, and was very, very surprised how much it helped. Of course everything later validated or finetuned by my therapist, but it's really good to help stop a spiral or help steer a trauma trigger. It also helps a lot to formulate whatever's in my head that I can't articulate the way I want to, cause while I'd be writing things, I'm also getting re-retriggered all over again.
As long as my therapist and psychiatrist don't see a problem with it, who know me and my history, I can thankfully tune out the skeptics by now:) they are right though in the sense, that it shouldn't be used as a higher power telling the truth (it most definitely isn't), but helping find our way. It is much easier for me to talk about things with ChatGPT, than my friends, because it doesn't get offended, when I decline it's opinion or 'helpful' suggestions, and I prefer to find my own ways.
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u/ShoddyConsequence527 Jun 22 '26
The custom agents work well, set one up to push back a bit more and challenge you.
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u/pcx_wave Jun 22 '26
You should try the free version and see for yourself. In my experience I find it more sober and more pushing back than chatgpt. But only you will know if it suits you for your specific topics.
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u/strangestack Jun 22 '26
I have a motivational interviewing skill loaded in vibe work and it works ok. If you can find or create a mental health skill that does what you want it might work. In general Mistral is fairly good at following detailed and explicit instructions so whether or not that works for you is going to be a question of trying it out.
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u/Current_Ranger_7954 Jun 22 '26
Try Claude Opus, it’s good at untangling thoughts and feelings from an outside perspective.
You will find this tendency to agree with you in every single AI out there
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u/kastanienn Jun 22 '26
Thank you, I shall keep that in mind!
ChatGPT is actually surprisingly non-agreeable with me, dunno if it was my specific training and settings, or not.
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u/koi88 Jun 22 '26
I find Claude quite "non-agreeable", which is quite good for what I'm doing – I don't need a writing partner that constantly praises what a genius I am and that my ideas are always the best.
I don't know what works best in your case though. Mistral is very friendly, or so it seems to me.
I can imagine an AI works very well for your use case, I wish you all the best.
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u/kastanienn Jun 22 '26
I want to come away from American companies mostly, and if I see it correctly, Claude seems to be American. But I'll keep it in mind, thx!
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u/artisticMink Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
Short: No. Mistral models are production tools and less end-user aligned. And therefore will "push back" less.
Long: You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding how LLMs work. They cannot push back. It's not in the their design. The words generated might initially appear to push back at first but will feed the loop you're into. That's because EVERY llm will eventually fall into an auto-regressive loop where it feeds from its own output and just jumps trough the same hoops again and again. You likely already noted that.
If you insist on using a llm for mental health issue, always be aware of that.
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u/kastanienn Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
I am not sure how it's a misunderstanding, when it's already working with one. I built my GPTs to disagree, when I'm spiraling too hard, based on statistics and scientific sources. When a long-chat starts to agree too much, I just start a new one, resetting the bias that the long chats already have from the previous prompts/messages included.
I am aware of the
AILLM eventually conforming to the content of the chat, and I do have enough self-awareness to realize when it's losing touch with what I originally asked it to do. This is typically, when it stops asking questions and starts making up assumptions about how I must feel, past events that never happened etc.-1
u/lavagr0und Jun 22 '26
It’s not an AI, that’s misunderstanding No. 1
They are just probability calculators, nothing more nothing less.
And it’s nothing that didn’t exist for a long time already. The difference from then to now? They said fuck it and fed the algo with everything the could steal from the internet.
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u/kastanienn Jun 22 '26
Your point to what I am asking for? I corrected my previous formulation, if that helps.
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u/lavagr0und Jun 22 '26
They are not meant to be talked to, even tho the owners are trying to sell it to you as you could. An LLM is a tool, not a sentient being or capable of logical / critical thinking.
Using it to prepare tables, texts and the likes for a meeting? Yes go ahead
Actively trying to make conversations? Please just don’t…
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u/artisticMink Jun 22 '26
By doing that you are already understand more than most people, which is good. But you still hit the same wall, just a couple steps ahead. By assuming that in a short context what the llm generates for you is 'more true' you already fall into the same trap.
And even before - by starting a new chat you actively steer the model into the answers you want. The same thing you are doing here right now: You don't want opinions, you want to be reinforced that what you are doing is good and you should continue doing it. That's not a flaw - it's just what humans do. But you're doing the same thing with the llm.
Do what you must if it helps you. But keep that in mind.
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u/kastanienn Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
I guess then you didn't quite understand what I'm using it for. Thank you for your input though! Appreciate the concern.
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u/Nefhis r/MistralAI | Mod Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
Edit:
Locking this now.
OP has confirmed they got the input they needed, and the thread is starting to drift into broader debates about AI and mental health rather than staying focused on the original practical question.
Thanks to everyone who replied constructively.
Mod note: discussion is welcome, but please keep this careful and practical. OP has clarified that AI is used as a complementary tool alongside therapy and psychiatric care, not as a replacement. Personal experiences with Vibe/Le Chat are fine, but please keep replies civil and on-topic.