By Karen Brown

“I understand that you’re experiencing a relationship problem, is that right?”

Yes.

“Okay, I’m delighted that you want to work on this K. I’ve good and bad news for you… Which do you want to hear first?”

Good news.

“The good news is, I have very powerful skills that I can teach you! These skills have really helped a lot of people build better relationships.”

And the bad news?

“The bad news is that you would have to be willing to accept 100% of the responsibility for changing the relationship.”

Why?

“Because you’re only ever going to be able to have control over your part of it.”

This conversation may sound like a fairly typical therapist’s session, but in this case, it was directed by Woebot, a therapeutic chatbot, with the psychiatrist’s couch swapped for a smartphone screen. 

(continue at New York Times below)