Will computers replace psychologists?

There are now computer programs capable of providing something known as "computerized therapy".

In the 1960s, a scientist at MIT named Joseph Weizenbaum developed a computer program designed to simulate sessions of Carl Rogers' humanistic therapy. therapy sessions of Carl Rogers.

This program asked a succession of open-ended questions so that, by viewing them on a screen, the patient could express his or her feelings as he or she would with a humanistic therapist. The initiative was so successful that many patients found it difficult to accept the idea that they had been interacting with a computer program, and believed that there was a real person sending them messages.

Today, what is known as computerized therapy exploits all the possibilities of today's technological development to offer something akin to what computerized therapy offers. to offer something similar to what Weizenbaum's program offered. However, will computers replace psychologists if this line of action continues to be pursued?

Computerized therapy

Until now, computers have occasionally been used as a channel for therapy, i.e., a place where therapists and clients or patients have met via the Internet. have met through the Internet. This possibility has almost always been seen as a limited version of face-to-face sessions, and therefore when possible it is recommended to physically attend a psychologist's office.

Computerized therapy makes computers cease to be simply the channel and become active agents in the process of interacting with the person.

It is based on the use of computer programs that adapt to what the person is doing and offer coherent reactions accordingly. In a way, they are somewhat similar to interactive self-help books, with the difference that in the latter the message is much more important (because it is the only thing that is offered) and that in computerized therapy the most important thing is the real-time interaction with the person. in computerized therapy the most important thing is the interaction in real time with the person..

As in psychotherapy, in computerized therapy the person who interacts with the patient does not speak more than the patient (something that would happen with self-help), but his service consists rather in asking the questions and making the reactions that make the other person change in a psychological sense, for example, through the cognitive restructuring of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Your benefits

Undoubtedly, having a computer program capable of adapting to what is said to you can be of interest as a form of self-helpInstead of self-administering text fragments from a book, we use as a service a program that allows us to express ourselves by reflecting on what is happening to us.

This makes, for example, that this service can be used almost always, simply by turning on a computer, and that this is a relatively inexpensive service compared to psychotherapy sessions. However, these two factors do not make this option a substitute for consultation. Let's see why

Why a computer cannot be a psychologist

The first thing to be clear about when understanding what computerized therapy is is that a computer program, at least with the technology currently available, will always have a rather limited capacity to adapt to and learn from what a real person says to it through language.

What characterizes us when we speak is that we use words and phrases in a very flexible way, using the same term in many possible ways and making it change its meaning depending on the context.The computer program behind a form of computerized therapy works by means of a decision tree, i.e. a pre-programmed sequence of actions.

The computer program behind a form of computerized therapy works by means of a decision tree, i.e. a sequence of actions that is already programmed in advance and that at certain points is divided into several parallel routes, just as in the "choose your own adventure" books.

This simple fact is what makes computerized therapy not comparable to real psychotherapy and therefore closer to self-help: the computer cannot understand the full range of a person's thoughts, feelings and actions; it will only interpret them on the basis of a person's own feelings and actions.It will only interpret them on the basis of a very limited processing scheme. The computer will "force" the information it gathers about us to fit its predefined schemas, whereas a psychotherapist does have the sensitivity to adapt his or her behavior in totally original ways.

This capacity, by the way, is not basically peculiar to therapists: it corresponds to human beings in general.

How to use sessions with a computer?

In conclusion, computerized therapy can be an interesting option as a complement to real therapy, always bearing in mind that computers cannot empathize or "read between the lines" of what a real human being does. That is why we can understand this service as a more developed form of self-help in which a certain margin is left to in which some leeway is left to the participation of the individual.

Although this option is very cheap because a computer program can be sold many times over. with the minimum cost using the same intellectual property, the time and space to coincide with a flesh and Blood psychotherapist remains important so that both the patient's actions and mental processes can be matched by a mind as complex and changing as his or her own.