Woebot Health By @TomSmith99 is an AI assistant designed to enhance mental health support, engaging users in interactive conversations to help manage challenges like anxiety and depression. Unlike human therapists, Woebot starts fresh with every interaction, providing consistent, reliable support. In collaboration with Arunav, we explored how its literal, time-independent approach excels in offering initial emotional support, while human therapists provide the deeper, more nuanced care needed for complex emotional issues.

Working with Arunav led to an intriguing way of looking at how therapeutic chatbots understand emotions. Arunav suggested looking at the Knowledge, Skills, and Behaviour framework with consideration to Woebot's unique relationship with time. Through this exploration some interesting ideas came to light about Woebot's approach to therapeutic interactions.

Think about it this way: while human therapists collect experiences and memories over time - which can be both helpful and sometimes create biases - Woebot approaches each conversation fresh. Though the chatbot works within its programmed boundaries (which can have their own biases), it offers something unique: every person gets the same consistent, careful attention, unaffected by previous conversations. You can see this in how Woebot works - from its straightforward, quite literal visual outcomes and obvious yogic meditative sounds, everything serves a direct purpose.

This makes therapeutic chatbots particularly good at those crucial first conversations - helping people take that initial step and guiding them to the right kind of support. But for the deeper, more complex emotional work? That's where human therapists shine, bringing their wealth of experience and emotional understanding to the table.