The Inhuman Computer / the Too-Human Psychotherapist

There has been an understandable rejection by psychotherapists of any natural language processing (computer/human interaction by means of usual language exchange) which is intended to embrace aspects of psychotherapy. For at least twenty years therapists have experimented with computer programs for specific and general purpose with reported success. This paper describes some of the aspects of artificial intelligence used in computer-mediated or computer-assisted therapy and the utility of such efforts in general reevaluation of human-to-human psychotherapy.