Internet Counseling
The growing craze of technology has driven the world in all aspects and areas. Psychology is not far behind , as it has also started using artificial intelligence technology in psychological testing and counseling.
The counseling application or mobile apps such as Woebot, Happify, etc, have taken up the place of therapist for many clients but the question is that ; can it really help clients suffering from mental health issues ? The age-old counseling and therapy room is disappearing in the world.
However a country like India which has not seen much of the therapy rooms and we have not yet discovered the full fledged counseling practices in India ,so here directly jumping upon these applications. It’s just like that we don’t know the real effect of offline therapy and directly switching on to online counseling apps.
Will it make any difference in the life of Clint and professional practices in India? Human race is different in that we have very complex emotions.So is it ethically correct to deal with our emotional situation with an artificial created entity.
This is the irony of the current situation that a human being has created something artificial to deal with his her emotional status. The justification is really correct that the needs of thousands of people can be catered at one go by artificial intelligence applications.
Real Counseling
This may even take counseling practices to doom in the world because till date we are not able to replicate human brain by any technology who can understand emotions like hippocampus, amygdala, area specific for understanding emotions.
These counseling apps have totally skipped the very first stage of counseling of rapport formation and probing into the problem of the individual. In counseling sessions through these app’s Client or individual directly jump into the session without any kind of diagnosis ; if in some case there is some diagnosis then that diagnosis is dependent upon only artificially created intelligence which is not enough to identify and diagnose psychological disorders.
In many applications individuals have to label themselves on their own that they have bipolar disorders, schizophrenia ,obsessive compulsive disorder,etc. It’s really good to sit back in your bedroom and get your mental health done. Do we have any data on how many people have been helped by these applications .
Yes we do have data about how many people have downloaded these applications . How many people have labeled themselves as suffering from psychological disorders?
Is it ethical to play with the life of an individual through these applications who are responsible for controlling the malpractices by some IT companies who hire untrained professionals to create such apps.what about proper research before creating any such applications and authenticity of such techniques specially in India.
Such self help applications can bring momentary solutions for psychological issues but to resolve it from the root we require proper trained professionals in the field of psychology.India and world should focus on creating more trained professionals in the field of psychology so that we can do justice with the upcoming mental health requirements.
This does not mean that we live in a vacuum and don’t explore technology in the field of psychology in counseling but artificial intelligence and technology should be utilized to gather data direct traffic but ultimately appliance should meet therapist who is Trend and professionally sound to tackle the mental health problem of individuals.
By – Dr Manisha Teotia
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