My Friend Is AI
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Therapy

Language of mental health support and emotional care

Therapy language has risen gradually, as more people describe an AI as emotional support or a substitute for a therapist. It is hard to separate from the addiction theme: both track the same thing — leaning on an AI to meet an emotional need — and what divides them is the writer’s framing. A neutral or positive read (“it helps me cope”) lands as therapy; a negative one (“I can’t stop”) lands as addiction. In the data the two lines barely overlap — but that is the keywords missing help-framing’s ordinary language, not a sign the themes are separate.

Most of this theme's posts come from a few communities — r/CharacterAI 31.5%, r/ChatGPTcomplaints 16.5%, r/replika 15.4%, r/Character_AI_Recovery 7%, r/MyBoyfriendIsAI 6% — so this line is a close reading of those rooms, not an even sweep across Reddit.

The keywords

This theme is defined by these 8 validated keywords — a post counts when its text matches one of them, with no AI classifier. The percentage is the share of a keyword's matches that were on-theme when hand-checked.

emotional support100% at validation· contested· drifting — 52% on re-checktherapeutic87% at validation· contested· drifting — 52% on re-checkcoping mechanism100%for therapy89%· contestedas a therapist87%· contestedai therapist92%ai therapy73% at validation· low volume· drifting — 48% on re-checkfree therapy75%· low volume

A few keywords carry a note. contested — an independent re-read didn't consistently agree its matches were on-theme, so its precision is less settled than the figure suggests. judgment call — kept despite a score below the usual bar because its false matches are few and predictable. low volume — too few matches to score precisely.

Precision figures come from each keyword's last full validation (all completed by May 2026). A monthly re-check re-reads a sample of each keyword's recent matches; where the latest re-check fell below 60% the keyword is marked drifting with that figure, and its validation number is known to run high. A drifted keyword stays in the count until the next keyword-set revision, so the line is never re-cut quietly mid-version.

These keywords are precision-first: when one matches, the post is usually on-theme — but they also miss a lot. A hand-coded audit found keyword matching catches only a minority of genuinely on-theme posts — a few percent to about a third, depending on the theme. Read the line as a floor, not a full count. How this is measured →

Matched posts

A sample of real posts a keyword matched, with the matched term highlighted.

Snippets are shortened and usernames aren't shown; each link opens the original public Reddit post. If one of these posts is yours and you'd rather it weren't here, message me and it comes down. How this is measured →