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Many LessWrong users are depressed. On the most recent survey, 18.2% of respondents had been formally diagnosed with depression, and a further 25.5% self-diagnosed with depression. That adds up to nearly half of the LessWrong userbase. One common treatment for depression is talk therapy. Jonah Sinick writes: > Talk therapy has been shown to reduce depression on average. However: > > * Professional therapists are expensive, often charging on order of $120/week if one's insurance doesn't cover them. > * Anecdotally, highly intelligent people find therapy less useful than the average person does, perhaps because there's a gap in intelligence between them and most therapists that makes it difficult for the therapist to understand them. > > House of Cards by Robyn Dawes argues that there's no evidence that licensed therapists are better at performing therapy than minimally trained laypeople. The evidence therein raises the possibility that one can derive the benefits of seeing a therapist from talking to a friend. > > This requires that one has a friend who: > > * is willing to talk with you about your emotions on a regular basis > * you trust to the point of feeling comfortable sharing your emotions > > Some reasons to think that talking with a friend may not carry the full benefits of talking with a therapist are > > * Conflict of interest — Your friend may be biased for reasons having to do with your pre-existing relationship – for example, he or she might be unwilling to ask certain questions or offer certain feedback out of concern of offending you and damaging your friendship. > * Risk of damaged relationship dynamics — There's a possibility of your friend feeling burdened by a sense of obligation to help you, creating feelings of resentment, and/or of you feeling guilty. > * Risk of breach of confidentiality — Since you and your friend know people in common, there's a possibility that your friend will reveal things that you say to others who you kno