Perceptions of Chatbots in Therapy

Abstract

Several studies have investigated the clinical efficacy of remote-, internet- and chatbot-based therapy, but there are other factors, such as enjoyment and smoothness, that are important in a good therapy session. We piloted a comparative study of therapy sessions following the interaction of 10 participants with human therapists versus a chatbot (simulated using a Wizard of Oz protocol), finding evidence to suggest that when compared against a human therapist control, participants find chatbot-provided therapy less useful, less enjoyable, and their conversations less smooth (a key dimension of a positively-regarded therapy session). Our findings suggest that research into chatbots for cognitive behavioural therapy would be more effective when directly addressing these drawbacks.