ongoing
Chatbotas an automated support tool for psychotherapy, psychological help, and promotion of mental health
principal investigator / project leader
Ph.D. / Associate Professor
psychologist, researches neural correlates of emotional experiences
Full bio project value: 71,125 EUR
funding source: Ministry of Education and Science
discipline: linguistics
location: Poznań
duration: 2020 2021 2022
A chatbot that is currently being developed by a team of researchers from SWPS University, led by Professor Jarosław Michałowski, will provide basic psychological support to individuals in distress, at any time and place, via popular messaging apps. The tool will boost the therapeutic process and will provide psychological interventions outside of therapy sessions. The chatbot algorithms will enable texting with people, using the most effective techniques of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), which help to identify and change negative thinking patterns, which cause mental distress.
The project is financed by Poland’s Minister of Science and Higher Education, as part of the “Regional Initiative of Excellence (RID)” for the years 2019-2022, project number 012/RID/2018/19 of December 18, 2018. Total amount of the RID funds granted to SWPS University is PLN 11,985,347 (close to EUR 2.6 million).
Assumptions
The goal of the project is to develop a chatbot that supports CBT therapeutic process and/or provides basic therapeutic help outside therapy sessions. The chatbot will identify and modify cognitive distortions using the Socratic method, an effective and universal technique rooted in cognitive-behavioral therapy. In this case, the innovative element lies in the automation of the method its implementation via a chatbot, accessible via popular messaging apps, which communicates with people through text messages that closely imitate natural human language. This approach seems very promising as far as the provision of an effective supplemental therapeutic support and basic psychological help are concerned.
We hope that the tool will enable access to basic professional psychological help, especially for people who face the biggest barriers in obtaining such help.
Michałowski, Jarosław
Principal Investigator
Specialization
psychologist, researches neural correlates of emotional experiences
First and last name
Jarosław Michałowski
Academic degree or title
Ph.D. / Associate Professor
Email
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Position
profesor uczelni
Role in the Faculty
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Role in the Department
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Role in the Institute
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Role in the Research Center
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Ph.D. / Associate Professor Jarosław Michałowskipsychologist, researches neural correlates of emotional experiences
Methodology
The chatbot’s databases containing baseline linguistic models have been compiled by CBT psychotherapists, using a new and original methodology. The chatbot will utilize a combination of machine learning and rule-based algorithms.
An important aspect of the project is verification of the chatbot's effectiveness, therefore pragmatic validation tests, user experience, and intervention effectiveness tests will be carried out. The final phase will include a study carried out in collaboration with Środowiskowe Centrum Zdrowia Psychicznego in Poznań, a center for mental health serving the local community of Poznań.
Research team
Sanna, Katarzyna
CBT therapist
Role in the Faculty
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Role in the Department
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Role in the Institute
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Role in the Research Center
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Specialization
psychologist, psychotherapist, cancer psychologist
First and last name
Katarzyna Sanna
Academic degree or title
Ph.D. / Assistant Professor
Email
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Ph.D. / Assistant Professor Katarzyna Sannapsychologist, psychotherapist, cancer psychologist
Szczepaniak, Norbert
research and development project manager
Specialization
research and development manager
First and last name
Norbert Szczepaniak
Academic degree or title
M.Eng.
Institute
Laboratory of Affective Neuroscience
M.Eng. Norbert Szczepaniak
Karkosz, Stanisław
specializes in the design and implementation of research projects and data analysis involving machine learning techniques
Specialization
cognitive scientist
First and last name
Stanisław Karkosz
Academic degree or title
M.A.
Role in the Institute
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Role in the Research Center
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Email
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Role in the Department
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M.A. Stanisław Karkoszcognitive scientist
Konat, Barbara
specializes in NLP and computational modelling of discursive text properties
First and last name
Barbara Konat
Academic degree or title
Ph.D.
Ph.D. Barbara Konat
Gawrycka, Iwona
specializes in innovation development, research commercialization and research ethics
First and last name
Iwona Gawrycka
Ph.D. Iwona Gawrycka
Practical application of results
The expected results of the project include expanding access to professional basic psychological support by reducing financial, social, and institutional barriers. Besides its social dimension, the project will provide a foundation for developing products offering extended functionality, addressed to individual and organizational users, such as therapeutic clinics that could use the chatbot as a tool supporting effectiveness of therapy, through systematization of patients’ own work and monitoring results of therapy.
Moreover, advancements made in neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and artificial intelligence in the area of robot-human interaction via text messaging, may provide strong foundation for further development of chatbots communicating with people in Polish and related languages.