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Advances in Psychiatric Treatment (2006) 12: 416-426
© 2006 The Royal College of Psychiatrists

The machine as psychotherapist: impersonal communication with a machine{dagger}

Digby Tantam

Digby Tantam is Clinical Professor of Psychotherapy at the University of Sheffield (Centre for the Study of Conflict and Reconciliation, University of Sheffield School of Health and Related Research, 30 Regent Street, Sheffield S6 6GJ, UK. Email: d.tantam{at}sheffield.ac.uk). He is Co-Director of the University’s Centre for the Study of Conflict and Reconciliation, Director of the Section of Mental Health within the School of Health and Related Research, and Deputy Director of Teaching for the School. He is also an honorary consultant psychotherapist and psychiatrist in Sheffield Care Trust. His current research interests include the evaluation of internet-based learning and teaching.

Machines will replace therapists and counsellors. This was the confident prediction made a decade ago. In this article, I discuss the inherent limitations of machines as conversationalists that have prevented the prediction from coming true. Machines can, however, be exploited to assist therapy and I consider the following digital tools: test administration; managing procedural, symptom-relieving cognitive–behavioural therapies; providing virtual environments for immersive behavioural therapies and for e-learning; and assisting training through automated discourse analysis and the use of cognitive maps.


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The machine as intermediary: personal communication via a machine
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APT 2006 12: 427-431. [Abstract] [Full Text]