Can AI Chatbot Help with Major Life Changes?
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Artificial Intelligence is seeping into all of our lives, every industry, every household, hence the development of AI Psychotherapy was no surprise. The power of AI grows stronger everyday, and it is becoming arguably more effective than humans in certain aspects. Most websites now feature an AI customer service chatbot, replying instantly with everything you need, so why not use AI in psychotherapy? An AI therapist that can give you all the advice you need whenever, wherever and saves you a trip to a therapist, it sounds too good to be true.
What separates psychotherapy from other professions is its emphasis on emotion and feelings, being what some would call — The Human Connection. Emotion is a crucial building block of psychotherapy and counselling, it is a pillar that helps us trust and build rapport with one another. Carl Rogers had emphasised the role of empathy in bringing about therapeutic client change and how it is a necessity in the therapist-client relationship (Gerace, 2018). It is beyond repeating the last word a client has said but involves taking their perspective, being compassionate, in addition to attempting to help them.
“The Human Touch”, meaning emotions such as empathy, warmth and congruence have been shown to contribute to 30% of client outcomes in therapeutic approaches (Gerace, 2018). Hence the importance of feelings and understanding, in addition to these facilitative conditions definitely plays a major role in the success of therapy. Can AI possibly do the same?
To put it plainly, no. Feelings and emotions are a subjective concept, one that computers may have trouble with processing. Imagine you’re having a bad day, you missed your bus, your partner forgot your birthday and its raining outside, all you want is someone to talk to. You share your experience to someone and all you receive is:
How would you feel? Would these replies satisfy you, the solutions to your problems are in front of you, but does it really fix the situation? That. Is the importance of emotion and empathy, the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. It surpasses gathering information and making logical decisions, but involves putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, and tapping into our emotional reserves. Now how would AI fare with these problems? It may have an infinite treasure trove of knowledge, but what about emotional intelligence? Replacing psychotherapists with AI assistance is out of the question, however, recently AI has been developed sufficiently to be able to read emotions and analyse our feelings, creating a tailored response afterwards. Despite its shortcomings, AI still has a bright future as a tool in psychotherapy, with new technology being developed to further its application.
Emotion AI, otherwise known as affective computing is a type of artificial intelligence that is trained to analyse, react and stimulate human emotions. This AI is able to do this through sentiment analysis and natural language processing, it can even detect voice emotion and facial movement analysis (Predin, 2024). Through human signals from text, audio and video, AI are now able to react to how we feel and reply accordingly. This may seem like a new major breakthrough, but it has actually already been implemented in our lives in the form of marketing, where sites tailor their recommendations towards our preferences, analysis our choices (Gossett, 2023). By blending advanced technology with psychology, Emotion AI can transform consumer interactions, gaining deeper insights into our behaviour through the analysis of cognitive and emotional responses.
With these same systems, modern chatbots can create great responses which are considerate to the user’s feelings and their needs, analysing body language and text, determining emotion. Specifically, AI can use sentiment analysis, which is the application of natural language processing to text samples, to determine whether the sentiments that the sentence expressed are positive and to what degree (Gossett, 2023). For example, the increasingly popular ChatGPT models are trained through analysis of a vast dataset of codes and text, this allows them to have a thorough understanding of human language. They can detect emotion with a high degree of accuracy, but it is unable to understand and reciprocate.
However, like most AI, it is prone to biases and inaccuracies. When faced with more complexity and subjectivity in emotional presentations, it may struggle to categorise the emotion it is trying to convey. Its ability to learn and adapt also poses major ethical concerns. It may be intrusive for users to know that they are being analysed by an AI, with users patterns being read and the AI constantly learning from your responses, lacking in privacy.
Although flawed, the joining of Artificial intelligence with emotional intelligence is a milestone, and it can still have a place as a tool in the future of psychotherapy. AI may not be able to reciprocate your emotions or understand how you feel, but reading your emotions and giving you advice? That could be beneficial to many. Current AI assessment tools are wildly powerful, drawing from large amounts of data, and revolutionising the potential of AI mental health care. The launch of ChatGPT has already foreshadowed the potential of AI therapy and started the creation of tools that therapists may use to cater for patient needs. An AI assessment tool was recently tested to be 89% accurate at identifying patients mental health disorders and classifying them correctly, using only 28 questions and no assistance from human input (Sutton, 2024).
Having an AI chatbot trained on identifying emotion and acknowledging how you feel can be relieving for patients. Most of the time when we are distressed, what we need is someone to listen and being able to vent out our emotions. Talking to someone can help us organize our thoughts and makes us feel less alone. Although AI may not be able to truly understand, it can identify your feelings and offer console, in addition to offering advice based on your situation. Using an AI can also help in reducing stigma, as some clients may feel more psychologically safe speaking to an AI, instead of pressure from the judgement of a human therapist.
AI can also be useful as a form of mental health first aid. The convenience and accessibility of AI is a major benefit, providing immediate support around the clock. Imagine if you’re having your first panic attack in the middle of the night, you’re distressed and talking to someone would just stress you out more. Talking to an AI about what you’re facing and receiving fact checked information on how to deescalate the situation, in addition to what you can do to can improve the situation drastically.
A supportive AI can help document your emotional responses and your stressors in life, crafting insightful journals that allow build resilience and self-awareness. These practices can help you understand yourself better in finding your triggers, and allows for self-reflection.
AI cannot feel or reciprocate our emotions, the responsibility of handling feelings and the therapeutic relationship are still best left for humans. However, the everchanging developments of AI are opening a myriad of doors to the possibilities of AI in Psychotherapy. It’s ability to learn and analyse emotions are one of many features which pave the way for its integration into our lives. AI may not be able to address the nuanced needs and comprehend the complexity of human psychology, but what it lacks in the human touch, is balanced by its diversified uses. With the rising demand for mental health care, AI can be a great tool to be used. Filling in the gaps that humans cannot, being cost-effective in addition to being available 24/7. It cannot replace human psychotherapists for now, but it can act as a valuable supporting tool, working hand in hand with human-led treatments for the best results.
Gerace, A. (2018, October). The power of empathy | APS. Psychology.org.au. https://psychology.org.au/for-members/publications/inpsych/2018/october-issue-4/the-power-of-empathy#:~:text=Empathy allows the therapist to
Gossett, S. (2023, February 7). Emotion AI: The Possibilities & Risk Of Reading Human Emotion | Built In. Builtin.com. https://builtin.com/artificial-intelligence/emotion-ai
Predin, J. M. (2024, January 30). AI Empathy: Emotional AI Is Redefining Interactions In The Digital Age. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/josipamajic/2024/01/30/ai-empathy-emotional-ai-is-redefining-interactions-in-the-digital-age/
Sutton, J. (2024, January 19). Revolutionizing AI Therapy: The Impact on Mental Health Care. PositivePsychology.com. https://positivepsychology.com/ai-therapy/
