Emotional problem-solving program

Emotional problems the program can help with

Stress
Impostor syndrome
Burnout
Anxiety
Hopelessness
Feeling overwhelmed
Depression (mild or moderate. Not severe)
Self-esteem issues
Motivation issues
Numbness
Sadness
Work life balance
Guilt
Sleep issues
Loneliness
Existential angst
Perfectionism
Relationship problems

Emotional problems the program cannot help with

Suicidality
Bipolar
ADHD
Gender dysphoria
Anger management
Substance use disorders
Autism related emotional issues
Cluster B personality disorders (e.g. BPD, APD, HPD, NPD)
Anything where you're experiencing psychosis
Anything where you're experiencing paranoia or delusions

How systematic emotional problem-solving works

It’s a short program that lasts 4-12 weeks, where you systematically try 5-30 techniques until you find something that fixes an emotional problem you're struggling with (e.g. anxiety, depression, impostor syndrome, etc).

First call: understand and plan

Understand. Discuss the problem and generate at least 5 hypotheses for what’s causing the problem.
Generate possible solutions. In this process, we’ll generate and look at least 30 possible ways to fix the problem. This will come from a wide swathe of possible solutions, such as CBT, internal family systems, problem-solving, changing your environment, meditation, diet, exercise, supplements, loving-kindness, gratitude, stoicism, improving sleep hygiene, checking for nutritional deficiencies, bibliotherapy, meds (not prescribed by me, but I might recommend you talk to a doctor), etc.
Prioritize possible solutions. We’ll prioritize the possible solutions by their probability of working, how costly they are to try, whether they can be tried with things in parallel, etc.
Plan to implement 5-10 of the possible solutions over the next 1-3 weeks. This will include things like setting up accountability systems, commitment devices, time blocking, etc. It will all be customized to what works best for you and for the particular techniques.

Next: implementation and evaluation cycle

You’ll spend the next 1-3 weeks actually putting the most promising techniques into practice.

You’ll keep track of your symptoms. If your symptoms go away, then we’ll analyze what happened. Sometimes it’ll be obvious what’s helping, and you can just keep doing that thing. If not, then we can start remove the techniques one at a time. If the symptoms come back, then we just bring back the technique that we removed, and we know what was doing the magic.

Experimenting in parallel means you get to feel better sooner and continue to feel good while we figure out what the problem was.

If your symptoms don’t go away after 1-2 weeks, then we’ll prioritize the next 5-10 techniques to try.

This process will happen up to 3 times.

By the end, you’ll have either resolved your issues, or you’ll at least have tried ~30 techniques to fix the problem. Even if you haven’t, you’ll probably have found at least a few more techniques to add to your repertoire of things that you enjoy.

Is this therapy?

It’s not therapy. It’s what I wish therapy was, but totally isn’t.

How much does it cost?

It's free if you:

Work in AI safety
Are currently unemployed, but usually work in AI safety
Earn to give and give >$50,000 a year to AI safety

I'm offering this service for free because mental health is one of the main blockers to people having an impact in AI safety.

I think x-risks and s-risks from AI are the most important things to work on. And I'm good at emotional problem-solving. So if I help people working on AI safety be happier, then I'm helping make sure AI doesn't kill everybody.

Timelines are too short to work with people who are not working in AI safety, but since I'm a rationalist and everybody has a point at which they'd trade time for money, I would do it for a non-AI safety person if they donated $10,000 or more to Nonlinear or an AI safety org working on pausing or slowing down AI development.

I have very limited time, so can only take on a small fraction of clients who apply. If you do not get in, I recommend checking out this vetted list of therapists or this compilation of mental health techniques for dealing with AI safety. Also, remember that there's evidence that doing therapy workbooks and apps are similarly effective to doing talk therapy, so consider just checking out workbooks from the library for your particular issue.

My track record in emotional problem-solving

My background in emotional problem-solving is extensive, although I hold no official certifications.

On a personal level I have:

Reduced my anxiety by ~85%
Reduced my sadness by ~95%
Reduced my suffering caused by a chronic health issue by ~85% (I credit this book: Feeling Better)
Completely eliminated my impostor syndrome
Solved two bouts of depression by applying the scientific method, spreadsheets, and the method I will help you implement
Been tracking my emotions and various emotional hypotheses I'm testing in a spreadsheet every day for over 8 years.
Experimented with a wide variety of therapeutic modalities, including but not limited to: CBT, internal family systems, solution focused therapy, mindfulness, stoicism, non-violent communication, ACT, emotional coherence therapy, and many more.
Read extensively about psychology and mental health, including the books the therapists study in school. My favorite books are
- Unlocking the Emotional Brain. You can see a review by Scott Alexander here
- The Upside of Stress
- The Obstacle is the Way

In terms of helping others, I have:

Helped people overcome mental health issues, allowing them to go back to work at their AI safety orgs
Helped people overcome impostor syndrome enough to be able to start AI safety charities or feel comfortable talking to people at EAGs
Written about different ways to flourish and regularly have people reaching out saying that it helped them be happier
The most common feedback I get in my coaching calls is that I energize people and help them feel more optimistic
I am the unofficial therapist for a sizeable fraction of my friends. I really like emotional problem-solving. I find it intrinsically enjoyable and then I get the warm fuzzies of directly seeing people feel better.