The Struggle for Authenticity and the Problem of Simulated Narratives

Abstract

The paper discusses the reductionist stance of linguistic AI (e.g., LLMs) and its limitations for self‐narrative work in psychotherapy as an ego‐transformative process of dealing with traumatic life events. Framing AI as a cognition technology aiming to simulate and substitute human cognitive processes/states, it introduces the concept of a simulated narrative. Such narratives disrupt narrative ownership and authenticity, while reducing the narrativity of the self to text as a token, composed by a set of aggregated formal regularities. This stands in contrast to therapeutic self‐narrative, which serves as the space for unfolding deep symbolism and as a process of practical self‐constitution. The reductionist view neglects that the narrativity of the self is (a) existential and experiential, requiring engaged authorship and active semiotic agency; that it is (b) a matter of mental action‐guiding structures enabling practical self‐emplotment; and that self‐healing (c) is a matter of intersubjective recognition.