---
title: "Woebot Labs Launches a Fully Functioning AI Facebook Bot to Deal With Mental Health"
description: "Woebot, which gives users therapy for depression, has been clinically proven to be more effective than a control. It is an example of a wider trend of using chatbots and artificial intelligence in the medical sector."
date: "2017-06-09"
modified: "2017-06-09"
authors:
  - name: "Tom Ward"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/tomward"
url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/woebot-labs-launches-a-fully-functioning-ai-facebook-bot-to-deal-with-mental-health"
categories:
  - "Artificial Intelligence"
  - "Brain"
  - "Health & Medicine"
  - "Mental Health"
tags:
  - "artificial intelligence"
  - "chatbot"
  - "depression"
  - "woebot"
---

# Woebot Labs Launches a Fully Functioning AI Facebook Bot to Deal With Mental Health

![](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/GettyImages-482212384.jpg>)
*Young woman lying in bed, looking towards through the window - black and white photo. \<em\>Image: \<a href="http://www.gettyimages.ca/license/482212384" target="\_blank"\>Marjot/Getty Images\</a\>\</em\>*

## A Counseling Robot

[Woebot](<https://www.woebot.io/>), pioneered by [Alison Darcy](<https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/alison-darcy>), a clinical psychologist at Stanford, is a conversational agent — a chatbot — that uses Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) principles to treat depression. Darcy developed it to combat the poor adherence people usually have with web-based apps for depression and also as a way mitigate the cost and inconvenience of mental health treatment.

CBT is a newer approach to therapy that focuses on depression's impact of the present rather than the trauma of the past — the focus of the traditional Freudian Model. Darcy explained in[ an interview with ](<http://uk.businessinsider.com/stanford-therapy-chatbot-depression-anxiety-woebot-2017-6?r=US&IR=T>)[ Business Insider](<http://uk.businessinsider.com/stanford-therapy-chatbot-depression-anxiety-woebot-2017-6?r=US&IR=T>) "A premise of CBT is it's not the things that happen to us — it's how we react to them."

Woebot combats depression mainly by identifying negative self-talk and all-or-nothing thinking as it exchanges messages with you via your smartphone. For example, if a a patient typed, "I'm useless at everything," Woebot would counter by replying that this may be just a single instance of failure and then help the patient identify self-loathing patterns.

![\[Taken\] Chatbot as Effective as Specialists in Providing CBT Treatment](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/impact-woebot_v2.png>)

[The trial for the project](<https://mental.jmir.org/2017/2/e19/>) took 70 individuals between 18- and 28-years-old who were randomized to receive Woebot treatment or the National Institute of Mental Health ebook, which served as a control. The results were definitive.

Woebot "significantly reduced their symptoms of depression over the study period." This study provides a medical precedent for conversational agents being a "feasible, engaging, and effective way to deliver CBT."

"The data blew us away," Darcy said in the interview. "We were like, this is it."

## Woebot and Depression

While Woebot is not designed to replace traditional therapeutic methods, it adds an instrument to our toolbox for fighting depression. [According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America](<https://www.adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-statistics>), depression effects 18 percent of the population over 18-years-old, making it one of the leading causes of disability in the country. Tools such as Woebot can improve these people's lives, and help ease a little strain from the psychology industry's finite resources.

Woebot is an example of the promising intersection between technology and psychology that can help treat depression — other examples include [virtual reality](<https://futurism.com/study-finds-virtual-reality-therapy-helps-with-depression>). Recently, there have also been promising developments in diagnosing depression, with scientists finding its [physical source in the brain](<https://futurism.com/not-just-a-state-of-mind-scientists-locate-the-physical-source-of-depression-in-the-brain>) and using artificial intelligence to identify it [through speech patterns. ](<https://futurism.com/machine-uses-algorithm-to-help-doctors-accurately-diagnose-depression>)

It is also emblematic of the increasing integration of chatbots into our society for humanitarian ends. Chatbots have also been used, with promising results, to improve the lives of thousands by providing [legal help to refugees](<https://futurism.com/a-robot-lawyer-is-officially-assisting-with-refugee-applications>)[ ](<https://futurism.com/you-may-have-to-go-through-a-robot-recruiter-to-land-your-next-job>)and helping [doctors with diagnoses](<https://futurism.com/an-ai-powered-chatbot-is-helping-doctors-diagnose-patients>) in the medical sector.