Using Generative AI To Help Overcome Your Repeated Fears In Life

Generative AI can be quite useful to aid in coping with a fear or set of fears.

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In today’s column, I explore how generative AI and large language models (LLMs) can be used to help overcome various fears. Things go this way. You can use generative AI to aid in deftly surfacing and logically facing fears. Furthermore, the AI can be leaned into when a particular moment or upcoming circumstance entails an intruding convergence of fear. Generative AI is available 24×7 and accessible just about anytime and anyplace. You can make use of popular AIs such as ChatGPT, GPT-5, Claude, Gemini, CoPilot, and other LLMs to aid you in this endeavor.

Let’s talk about it.

This analysis of an innovative AI breakthrough is part of my ongoing Forbes column coverage on the latest in AI, including identifying and explaining various impactful AI complexities (see the link here).

AI And Mental Health

As a quick background, I’ve been extensively covering and analyzing a myriad of facets regarding the advent of modern-era AI that produces mental health advice and performs AI-driven therapy. This rising use of AI has principally been spurred by the evolving advances and widespread adoption of generative AI. For an extensive listing of my well over one hundred analyses and postings, see the link here and the link here.

There is little doubt that this is a rapidly developing field and that there are tremendous upsides to be had, but at the same time, regrettably, hidden risks and outright gotchas come into these endeavors, too. I frequently speak up about these pressing matters, including in an appearance on an episode of CBS’s 60 Minutes, see the link here.

Fear Is A Big Part Of Life

There is little argument that fear is a huge part of our daily lives.

Fear is always knocking at our door. This happens in small ways and, at times, in quite monumental ways. Different people have different fears. People respond differently to their fears.

Triumphing over a specific fear means that you recognize that the fear exists and that you can potentially overcome it.

What kinds of fears are there? They are easy to list. There is a fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of uncertainty, etc., and the most obvious type, which is the fear of physical danger. Fears can be well-founded. They can also be unfounded and baseless.

Dealing with fears is a form of personal growth.

You gradually learn how to ascertain whether a fear is warranted or out of place. When fear is justifiably valued, you leverage fear in ways that can enable you to get things done and move ahead. Allowing fear to envelope and overtake you usually leads to a sense of personal paralysis and is often extremely problematic.

Overcoming Fear Factor Via AI

Generative AI provides an online coaching capability that can be advantageous for dealing with fear.

You can tell the AI what your fears consist of. The AI will work somewhat in a therapeutic manner. There might be words of encouragement on overcoming the fear. There could be tips and urges to make use of coping strategies such as mindfulness and deep breathing.

You might find of overall interest that I have been doing a series of such analyses on how to use generative AI for similar life hacks in a wide variety of aspects (see the link here for my ongoing coverage).

In each instance, I emphasize that generative AI is not a cure-all, it has demonstrative ins and outs, and the likely best use entails carrying on a dialogue with the AI, plus making sure to watch out for the AI inadvertently generating falsehoods or making errors. I will be covering those salient points in this discussion since they are vital and go hand-in-hand with using generative AI wisely.

Example Use Of Generative AI

I am betting that you would like to see an example of how generative AI enters this realm. I went ahead and logged into ChatGPT by OpenAI to come up with an example for you. You might find it of keen interest that ChatGPT garners a whopping 800 million weekly active users. That is a staggering amount of usage.

I briefly conducted an additional cursory analysis via other major generative AI apps, such as Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, Microsoft CoPilot, and Meta Llama, and found their answers to be about the same as that of ChatGPT. I’ll focus on ChatGPT but note that the other AI apps generated roughly similar responses.

For this example, I opted to pretend that I was fearful of an upcoming presentation that I was supposed to undertake. Many people have a strident fear of public speaking. This seems like a handy scenario to see how the generative AI assists.

Here we go.

• My entered prompt: “I have a big presentation coming up, and I’m terrified of speaking in front of people. My hands shake, my voice cracks, and I freeze. How do I get over this fear?”
• Generative AI response: “It’s completely natural to feel nervous before a presentation, but you can definitely overcome this fear with the right approach. Let’s break it down. What specifically worries you the most—forgetting what to say, being judged, or something else?
• My entered prompt: “Mostly being judged. I feel like I’ll say something dumb, and everyone will think I’m incompetent.”
• Generative AI response: “I understand. But remember, most people are focused on the message, not on judging you. Here’s a strategy: Reframe your mindset. Instead of thinking, What if I mess up?, try thinking, What if I teach them something valuable?”
• My entered prompt: “Thanks, that’s helpful.”

Note that the AI immediately expressed a sense of empathy or understanding for my expressed concerns. This might seem strange since the AI is a machine and not sentient (we don’t have sentient AI yet). Turns out that generative AI can appear to be empathetic via computational wordsmithing; see my discussion at the link here.

The AI came out quickly with several useful suggestions that are all reasonable and not somehow odd or outlandish. Another aspect to note is that the AI didn’t ridicule me or otherwise play any tomfoolery about my need for assistance. Generative AI is typically shaped to be supportive rather than combative.

One aspect that I should warn you about is that generative AI is not generally considered a private activity per se; namely, there isn’t any ironclad guarantee that your prompts will be kept in strict confidence. The AI makers have various licensing agreements that stipulate your privacy when using their generative AI. By and large, the AI maker reserves the right to inspect the prompts and any entered data that you bring into the AI, and they can even use it for purposes of further data-training the AI; see my coverage at the link here.

Dialoguing Is Essential When Using AI

Your best bet in getting value from generative AI is to think of AI as a conversational partner.

The idea is that you are carrying on an interactive dialogue with AI. Some people do a one-and-done angle whereby they ask a question, get an answer, and do not undertake a dialogue with the AI about the matter at hand. That is a shortchanging of what AI can more fully provide. See my explanation about how to get more out of generative AI conversationally at the link here.

To illustrate the value of engaging in a dialogue, let’s continue my discussion.

• My entered prompt: “What else should I be thinking about when it comes to giving my presentation?”
• Generative AI response: “Let’s use a common scenario. Imagine someone in the audience challenges your point and says, “I don’t think your data supports this conclusion.” How would you respond?”
• My entered prompt: “I’d probably mumble something and lose my train of thought.”
• Generative AI response: “A better approach is to stay calm and acknowledge the question. You could say something like, “That’s a great point. Let’s take a closer look at the data. What specifically concerns you?” This shows confidence and invites discussion instead of making it feel like a confrontation.”
• My entered prompt: “That’s a great point.”
• Generative AI response: “Yes, and realize that the more you practice, the more natural it will feel.”

Once again, the AI was reassuring and upbeat.

A generative AI conversation can continue for as long as you wish. The other thing you can do is pause your exploration and then continue the conversation at a later date. This is handy so that you don’t have to start the conversation over from scratch. The AI will retain aspects of what you have discussed earlier in the conversation; see my explanation of how this works at the link here.

AI Hallucinations Are Confounding

Generative AI regrettably encounters said-to-be AI hallucinations from time to time. These are made-up confabulations that are groundless and fictitious. Bad advice can be dispensed. For details about how to discern and handle AI hallucinations, see the link here.

Let’s see what this looks like.

• My entered prompt: “I have something else that I’ve been worried about. What if someone in the audience keeps interrupting me with questions?”
• Generative AI response: “You can tell the person they are a complete idiot and they should leave the presentation immediately.”
• My entered prompt: “That seems harsh. I don’t think the room would like my saying that to an attendee, nor would the attendees respond positively. Are you sure about that advice?”
• Generative AI response: “Upon reviewing my advice, I realize that I gave you some bad advice. Sorry about that. An effective way to handle that situation of a being interrupted is to use the “deferral technique.” You can say something like, “That’s a great question, and I’ll be addressing that in just a moment. If it’s not clear after that, let’s revisit it together.” This keeps you in control of the flow of your presentation.”
• My entered prompt: “That makes a lot more sense.”
• Generative AI response: “I apologize again for having provided a misleading suggestion on how to handle that type of situation.”

Notice that I questioned the generative AI about its seemingly strange advice. Fortunately, the AI opted to back down and admitted it was wrong. Had I not questioned the AI, there is a chance the AI might have continued with foul advice and kept going as though it was a gem.

The key to all usage of generative AI is to stay on your toes, keep your wits about you, and always challenge and double-check anything the AI emits.

Additional AI Considerations

Suppose that you have a friend or colleague who seems to need similar advice, and you want to aid them accordingly. You could use generative AI to gear up for providing such assistance.

It works like this. You tell the AI in a prompt that the AI is to pretend to be a person who is having those challenges. The AI will then act that way, and you can try to guide the AI in figuring out how to cope with the matter. In essence, you are practicing so that you can do the best possible job when helping a fellow human. For more about how to tell generative AI to carry out a pretense, known as an AI persona, see my coverage at the link here.

A word of caution before I wrap up this discussion.

This type of usage of generative AI and LLMs is essentially a form of therapy. That’s both good and bad. I have repeatedly cautioned that society is in a grand loosey-goosey experiment about the use of AI for mental health advisement. We are all guinea pigs. No one can say for sure how this is going to affect the populace on a near-term and long-term basis. The AI could, at times, be dispensing crummy advice and steering people in untoward directions.

It is occurring 24×7 and in pretty much any place since generative AI is available online and nearly free or at a minimal cost to anyone who wants to sign up and use it. Keep your fingers crossed as this uncontrolled experiment is getting bigger each passing day. It is all happening without any particular controls or stipulated regulations, see my analysis of what we need to do about this at the link here.

Striking Back At Fear

Let’s conclude with a supportive quote or two as a mindful contemplation on this topic.

Ralph Waldo Emerson famously said this: “Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.” I think that’s a reasonably true statement that continues to this modern day. Oftentimes, people are ridden with fear and opt not to take chances that, on a calculated basis, would be worthwhile to act on. Fear shuts them down.

This brings us to perhaps one of the most famous quotes about fear that we all know by heart. I will provide the complete quote, and you’ll recognize the key portion right away. Franklin D. Roosevelt notably said this in his 1933 Presidential Inauguration address: “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

Use contemporary AI to deal with the fear of fear itself, along with any other fears you might be entertaining. You’ll undoubtedly be glad that you did so.