Artificial Intelligence in Therapy
There’s a whole laundry list of reasons why traditional therapy was never viable to many people. It’s expensive, time taking and people are afraid to open up to other humans. It’s also a more time-consuming process of churning out licensed therapists. There can only be so many therapists at one time and so many clients they can take. Aside from that it’s a much more public affair, especially considering the stigma against therapy itself. Also, during the pandemic, the need for therapy skyrocketed and traditional means weren’t available. This led to online therapy as the only option either with another person at the end or a bot.
The idea behind these apps is fairly simple. They are mostly chatbots in essence with a bit of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) could be a style of psychological treatment that has been incontestable to be effective for a variety of issues together with depression, anxiety disorders, alcohol and drug use issues, martial issues, feeding disorders, and severe mental disease
Principles of cognitive behavioural theory
CBT is based on several core principles, including:
- Psychological issues are based mostly, in part, on faulty or unhelpful ways of thinking.
- Psychological issues are based mostly, in part, on learned patterns of unhelpful behaviour.
- People with psychological issues will learn higher ways of managing them, thereby relieving their symptoms and turning simpler in their lives.
How CBT works
CBT treatment sometimes involves efforts to vary thinking patterns. These methods would possibly include:
- Learning to acknowledge one’s distortions in thinking that are making issues, and so to reassess them in light weight of reality.
- Gaining a higher understanding of the behaviour and motivation of others.
- Exploitation problem-solving skills to deal with tough things
- Learning to develop a larger sense of confidence in one’s own talents.
CBT treatment conjointly sometimes involves efforts to vary behavioural patterns. These methods would possibly include:
- Facing one’s fears rather than avoiding them.
- Exploitation role taking part in organising for doubtless problematic interactions with others.
- Learning to calm one’s mind and relax one’s body.
Algorithm behind AI therapy software:
The reason this mode of therapy is preferred is simply because it’s easy to program. Essentially you are throwing back the input as output. The program will rephrase what you told it back to you. It’s mostly following a tried and tested script. It chooses among its catalogue of solutions. Prescribes you what it thinks might help. This line of therapy seldom cares about the root of the issue than the cause. It’s more about reducing symptoms than finding causes. It’s effective no doubt but it’s based on coping. Simple exercises or a thought. It only asks you to rewire your brain into avoiding whatever’s bothering you.
Another big problem with these apps is data harvesting. If you are anxious to tell your problem to your closest friends and family or a traditional therapist, I wonder how you would feel about it being sold off. Your privacy for these companies is a constantly negotiable term. At the end of the day most don’t have a choice to go against the system, it’s an unaffordable luxury. So better late than never.
This article was written by Abdur Rehman — Writer at RAC’23.
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