On November 30, 2022, ChatGPT was launched - a chat bot with artificial intelligence that can create new information, build a dialogue, argue, answer questions and even write a poem or essay. It has already been blocked by New York City public schools over fears that students will stop writing their own papers. Over the past couple of months, the number of users has already reached millions. The founders of the OpenAI company, which launched the project, included Elon Musk. What do psychologists have to do with it? ChatGPT tracks the user's state by remembering previous questions and answers given to him in the same conversation, which will allow the chatbot to be used as a personalized therapist. This week, virtual psychotherapist and startup ChatOwl, which uses ChatGPT, received $1. 1M for development. And when investors invest money, they believe that the trend will continue to spread and make a profit. “Personal virtual therapist in your pocket” ChatOwl is an English-language smartphone application that supports the user’s mental health. It is clarified that it was created by a team of clinical psychologists with more than 60 years of experience. Database: 15,000 recorded psychotherapeutic sessions. The chatbot specializes in working with anxiety and depression. *Stop creating thoughts and emotions that work against you. I installed and tested this application. Pros: I was run first on the GAD-7 scale to assess the level of anxiety, and then on the depression questionnaire PHQ-9. In my opinion, the Beck Depression Inventory is better, but it has 21 questions, and the app's goal is to give the user an answer as quickly as possible. After all, it is easier to distract yourself from a mobile application than in the case of targeted work with a psychologist. There are visual meditations, not just auditory ones. That is, you can watch a video with relaxing music and a beautiful picture. And then a luminous point appears on the video, which draws figures, you need to follow it. Something like hypnosis. True, I got seasick after a couple of minutes. A mood diary is kept, that is, the user’s condition is monitored and a schedule is drawn up. It’s a useful thing, I also use it in my work. This is the same point. Cons: I can’t write something there myself, I can only choose from the proposed answers. It looks like “I give him my word, and he gives me 10.” When the robot replies “I’m sorry to hear that,” I don’t believe that the machine is sorry to hear about my depression. The so-called session - the bot asked me to imagine myself as a mighty tree in a field over which the forces of nature have no power. There was no preliminary relaxation, immediately: “come on, you’re a tree.” Everything is in text format, which is not very convenient: both reading and presenting a picture. In classical symboldrama, we first talk with the person, find out if he has any traumas associated with the motives that we want to use. Then we immerse ourselves in relaxation, then we start with simple images. Or am I just such a bore, I think through everything so as not to accidentally injure the client. As a result, the bot selects a meditation program with suggestions, affirmations, etc. Basically, nothing new. There are a lot of meditation programs, and they also analyze the user’s responses in order to more accurately select more interesting things and keep him in the application longer. What is the conclusion? Such applications only provide tools, distracting a person from negative and anxious thoughts. But anxiety and depression do not arise on their own and do not go away with meditation. We need to look for the causes of these conditions and learn to cope with them. A psychologist not only asks questions. Natural, not artificial, intelligence penetrates the client, listens, hears, supports, worries, and sympathizes. Chatbot code: “if the question is like this, then the answer should be like this.” A good psychologist is able to generate ideas, come up with new techniques for a specific person, without trying to force him into any framework or label him. In the afterword of the book “The Executioner of Love,” Irvin Yalom wrote about his young self after 25