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Chatbots now conduct more mental health sessions than all human clinicians combined--despite having little training, zero licensing, and no professional accountability. This essential guide from world-renowned psychiatrist Allen Frances helps clinicians understand the bewildering chatbot revolution and provides strategies for thriving within it. Frances describes how to train AI-based tools to be helpful therapy assistants--not rivals or harmful replacements. He discusses ways to evaluate patients' use of chatbots, assess possible risks, set up guardrails for using these tools safely, create between-session chatbot homework, manage digital boundary violations, and protect patient privacy. The book is packed with vivid stories, concise explanations of technical concepts, and practical tips. The companion website features reproducible/downloadable tools for clinicians and a multipage patient handout.
Allen Frances, MD, is a clinician, educator, researcher, and leading authority on psychiatric diagnosis. He chaired the DSM-IV Task Force, was a member of the Task Force that prepared DSM-III-R, and wrote the final version of the Personality Disorders section in DSM-III. The author of several hundred papers and more than a dozen books, Dr. Frances is Professor and Chair Emeritus of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University.
I. Creating Chatbots in Our Own Image
1. What Is a Chatbot?
2. Chatbot Dreams and Chatbot Nightmares
3. Chatbot Past and Chatbot Future
4. Chatbot Thinking and Human Thinking
5. Chatbot Genius and Chatbot Jackass
6. Meet a Great Chatbot Therapist
7. Chatbot Therapy: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
8. Meet the Casualties of Awful Chatbot Therapists
II. The Clinician’s Guide
9. Getting Started
10. Training Your Chatbot Assistant
11. How Do We Avoid Being Replaced by Chatbots?
12. Our David versus Their Goliath
13. Chatbot Predators and Chatbot Victims
14. Chatbot Privacy Is an Oxymoron
15. Retraining Our Training Programs
16. Resolving Disagreements
17. Mastering Our Uncertain Future
18. My Advice for Patients
Addendum: Ten Crucial Debates We Should Be Having (and Aren’t)
Afterword
Acknowledgments
References
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