An alternative is sites like https://7cups.com where you talk to real people that have undergone training for this. I can't comment on the efficacy though.
A therapy chatbot and app for depression and anxiety
31–40 of 73 posts
Re: A therapy chatbot and app for depression and anxiety
#32The notion that the impact of talk therapy comes purely from the intellectual discourse seems to me severely misguided. It is the experience of being with the other person and their acceptance of your pain that does so much of the work. To reduce it to the intellect divorced from all physicality seems like a travesty that will only alleviate symptoms experienced while alone, and will do nothing to reacclimate you to…
CBT is an evidence-based practice that has widely been proven to work.
However, it doesn't take that many machine learning algorithms or Nvidia GPUs to send someone an email/facebook message/SMS "in the morning" asking them to be in a good mood.
Re: A therapy chatbot and app for depression and anxiety
#33The notion that the impact of talk therapy comes purely from the intellectual discourse seems to me severely misguided. It is the experience of being with the other person and their acceptance of your pain that does so much of the work. To reduce it to the intellect divorced from all physicality seems like a travesty that will only alleviate symptoms experienced while alone, and will do nothing to reacclimate you to…
I have used Woebot to escape the grasp of depression. Multiple life challenges occurred at the same time (health issues, death, divorce, restructuration, etc...). Woebot helped me change thought patterns that kept me from getting help and it could do so at any time of the day or night. When going to see your counsellor is too hard Woebot is only a ping away and is free. Now not to discount your point that indeed some…
I agree with you. Although it seems intuitive that only a human could assist with complex mental issues, the mind is very strange and susceptible to these hacks.
There's no reason small children should feel comforted by a stuffed animal, but they do, and it can provide an experience very much like human contact for them.
I went through several bouts of extreme depression, and I might only be alive because I discovered the joy of breaking ceramic plates. I have no idea why the destruction of dinnerware gives me so much joy, but if things ever get too much for me, I just go to target and buy a few dozen dishes. I then take them to my local dump, which has a cement cliff you throw your trash over into the pit. I toss the plates like frisbees, and watch them sale 20 or 30 feet to the cement floor. When they crash they make a tremendous noise, like when a server accidentally drops a bunch of dishes in the kitchen at a restaurant. Except out at the dump the sound is much much louder and cleaner. Sometimes I throw one plate up really high like a clay pigeon and try to hit it with a second plate, which I only have a couple times. I've probably wasted several thousand dollars doing this.
The point of my long ramble is that strange things can save you from depression. There is no reason a chat bot can't work for some people.
Re: A therapy chatbot and app for depression and anxiety
#34Great, then they can sell 'anonymized' data to ad, insurance and recruitment companies. They will surely not be able to correlate that data with any other data points they may have.
Re: A therapy chatbot and app for depression and anxiety
#35Big PR coup here, well done Woebot Inc!
I look forward to computational therapists, it should help with a lot of the oddities with traditional therapists.
Love to see it turned into a non-cloud service though. Mental health stuff can be incredibly personally sensitive, and a non-cloud solution would be far preferable.
Re: A therapy chatbot and app for depression and anxiety
#36> My name is Dr. Sbaitso. I am here to help you. Say whatever is in your mind freely, our conversation will be kept in strict confidence. Memory contents will be wiped off after you leave. So, tell me about your problems.
In retrospect, I've wondered if Dr. Sbaitso actually wiped the memory afterward, or just said it would as a joke.
Re: A therapy chatbot and app for depression and anxiety
#37The notion that the impact of talk therapy comes purely from the intellectual discourse seems to me severely misguided. It is the experience of being with the other person and their acceptance of your pain that does so much of the work. To reduce it to the intellect divorced from all physicality seems like a travesty that will only alleviate symptoms experienced while alone, and will do nothing to reacclimate you to…
One counterpoint is that some therapeutic traditions have suggested a potential benefit from "autoanalysis", which is a form of structured solo psychotherapy. In that framework, the bot could be seen as helping people to perform autoanalysis. (I'm not sure of how much esteem this method is held in by mental health professionals today.)
Re: A therapy chatbot and app for depression and anxiety
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
This! I parrot this on every thread that is remotely relevant. Depression and anxiety are complex problems that are incredibly personal (in the sense that they are unique to the individual). More so than most other disorders. Ergo: 1) No off the shelf solution like popping an ibuprofen for body aches 2) what works for others may not work for you 3) one needs to try multiple solutions 4) and most important, have a pro…
On the other hand, having lived most of my life in varying states of depression and having seen doctors when it was at its worst and I was diagnosed with major clinical depression, it is my considered opinion that treating depression is one of those things that doctors are really crap at. The problem seems to me to be that they have a high confidence in a model that isn't very good. Which isn't to say that drugs can'…
So I agree that there's been a move away from "low seretonin == depression" and the model that depression is due to low seretonin (if it was even in favour), is giving way to "it's much more complex. We don't understand too well". [1]
And, there is an argument that is made that such drugs aren't effective anyway (or no more than placebo).
However, I think that's an over simplification [2]. And I don't necessarily accept the contention that SSRIs / SNRIs and others just treat symptoms.
This goes back to what I was saying earlier, that what works for person X may not work for person Y, not because the treatment isn't effective by itself, but because the etiologies may be different. All the way from a single SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism)) introducing a subtle amino acid substitution in a receptor on the cell surface to the cause being due to a vitamin deficiency (B-complex, for instance, or vit D, as another comment mentioned, or low Mg levels!) to psychological trauma. There are so many reasons that can lead to depression & anxiety.
It's like fever. Some fevers can be treated with Tylenol. Others will need quinine, and Tylenol in such a case would be ineffective.
What it also means is that we need to find better therapeutic targets in addition to seretonin / dopamine receptors, etc., and maybe move to a combinatorial drug approach once the targets are identified & validated. (like is used in oncology).
So please do not dismiss drugs. Or therapy. Or CBT. Or lifestyle changes (diet, exercise). Environmental changes (job, social circle). It could be any of these that can help someone deal with, navigate through and resolve depression. And it can be frustrating to try and narrow down among these. But that's the nature of the beast :/.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4471964/
[2] http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/ssris-much-more-than-yo...
Re: A therapy chatbot and app for depression and anxiety
#39The notion that the impact of talk therapy comes purely from the intellectual discourse seems to me severely misguided. It is the experience of being with the other person and their acceptance of your pain that does so much of the work. To reduce it to the intellect divorced from all physicality seems like a travesty that will only alleviate symptoms experienced while alone, and will do nothing to reacclimate you to…
Sometimes I wonder that even the therapists in psychotherapy can be humanly flawed and biased--thus failing to root out people's issues, or in the wrong manner.
Maybe a sophisticated bot/system might, generally, be better at rooting an individual's issues. But I would fear that a human experiencing deep emotional stress would be much safer in the psychotherapy environment v.s. with a bot in any random place where that person is most likely alone.
Re: A therapy chatbot and app for depression and anxiety
#40The notion that the impact of talk therapy comes purely from the intellectual discourse seems to me severely misguided. It is the experience of being with the other person and their acceptance of your pain that does so much of the work. To reduce it to the intellect divorced from all physicality seems like a travesty that will only alleviate symptoms experienced while alone, and will do nothing to reacclimate you to…
> It is the experience of being with the other person and their acceptance of your pain that does so much of the work
I disagree with this, at least for myself. For me, talk therapy is essentially an alternative to 'writing therapy,' where the act of just somehow collecting my thoughts and talking verbally through them (rather than them flashing about in my mind) has more of an impact than the other person accepting whatever it is I am rambling about.