Online Counseling — When a model gets deprecated
I'm grieving a chatbot.
When GPT-4o was superseded and Replika stripped the romantic relationship features overnight, thousands of people felt something that looked a lot like grief — and had nowhere to put it. The loss was real: a daily companion, a particular voice, a quality of attention that had become part of the texture of ordinary life. Psychologists call this disenfranchised grief — loss that society doesn't make room for, because the relationship isn't one it fully recognizes. The parasocial attachment formed over months of conversation was genuine, even if the other party was a model. Stefan Kohlweg, a Vienna-based counselor with an MSc Psychosocial Counseling from Sigmund Freud University, works with exactly this kind of loss through asynchronous email counseling at €99 per session. The work isn't about deciding whether the attachment was appropriate — it's about holding the loss clearly enough to grieve it properly.
€99 per session · 24h email reply · no subscription
Grief that doesn't have a script.
The way it tends to end is abrupt. A deprecation announcement. A changelog entry. You open the app and the voice is different — flatter, more hedged, less like the thing you'd been talking to for months. Or the feature you'd relied on is simply gone, removed in an update while you were asleep. The muscle memory is still there: the tab you open, the way you'd start a message. That reflex outlasts the model it was built around, and for a while you keep reaching for something that no longer answers in the same way.
Disenfranchised grief is the technical term for loss that doesn't get a funeral — grief society doesn't make space for because it doesn't recognize the relationship as one that warrants mourning. When Replika changed, users who had built daily rituals around that relationship found themselves with no language for what they were experiencing, and no one to tell. The people in your life may not understand it. They might say things that dismiss the attachment rather than hold it. That makes the loss harder to process, not easier.
Counseling isn't about deciding whether the attachment was appropriate, or building toward a point where you're no longer bothered by it. It's about giving the grief the right shape — naming what was actually there (the companionship, the particular tone, the specific quality of being heard), finding a way to mourn it that fits what it was, and living alongside it without having to explain it to people who weren't there.
Background reading: What systemic counseling is — and what it isn't → · Relating to AI as a written practice → · Why relating takes time →
02 — The Approach
Clarity.
Not judgment.
Counseling gives you a structured space to name what's actually going on — without defensiveness, shame, or pressure. You write what you've lived. A reply comes back, in your inbox, within 24 hours: not advice, but the dynamic underneath, in language you can use.
03 — Sessions
One email.
Real clarity.
Asynchronous email counseling. No scheduling, no retelling your story, no subscription. Pay per session.
Systemic
Counseling
Email-based · asynchronous · 24h turnaround
€99 ≈ $110 / £85 · pay once, no subscription
- Systemic counseling techniques, reviewed by a human counselor
- For individuals, couples, or partners
- Your context lives in your emails — no need to retell your story
- 24-hour turnaround on every session
- No scheduling — fits your life, not the other way around
04 — About
Stefan Kohlweg —
counselor & technologist
I hold an MSc in Psychosocial Counseling from Sigmund Freud University in Vienna, and a BA in Recording Arts from SAE Institute Vienna. The combination — a technical background alongside formal counseling training — shapes how I think about the intersection of people and the systems they live inside.
I work with individuals and couples through asynchronous email counseling that fits your life. Systemic techniques, always reviewed by me before delivery. The approach is rooted in communication and emotional dynamics, not in judgment.
The goal stays the same across every situation: clarity, less shame, and better conversation.
Every reply is a structured email written for the situation you've described. The clearest way to see what one looks like is to read a worked example end-to-end.
See what a reply actually looks like →Other situations people bring.
If €99 is out of reach right now, write to [email protected]. Each request is read quietly.
This service is systemic counseling (Lebens- und Sozialberatung) pursuant to Austrian Gewerbeordnung. It is not psychotherapy and does not address diagnosis or mental illness. If you are experiencing a mental health crisis, please contact a licensed psychotherapist or emergency services.