Attitudes and perspectives towards the preferences for artificial intelligence in psychotherapy

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in psychotherapy has been increased in recent years. While these technologies in psychotherapy are growing, the circumstances of accepting artificial tools during psychotherapy need to be explored to improve effective AI tools during the sensitive therapeutic environment. In this study, the factors around the preferences for AI-based psychotherapy were investigated. This cross-sectional study was conducted with a sample of 872 individuals who are highly educated, 18 aged and above. Attitude towards AI-based Psychotherapy, Attitude towards Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale- Short Form, and Stigma Scale for Receiving Psychological Help Scale were used to examine the factors of participants' preferences for AI-based psychotherapy. While 55% of the sample preferred AI-based psychotherapy, the majority of participants trusted more human psychotherapists than AI-based systems when asked participants' trust about the security of personal data. However, three important benefits of AI-based psychotherapy were identified as being able to comfortably talk about the embarrassing experiences, having accessibility at any time, and accessing remote communication. Importantly, factors of preferences for AI-based psychotherapy were related to the idea of AI-based psychotherapy systems can improve themselves based on the results from previous therapeutic experiences. Gender and the types of profession related to psychology and technical/engineering were also associated with choosing AI-based psychotherapy. The results suggest that both raising awareness of the benefits and effectiveness of psychotherapy as well as the trust to the artificial intelligence tools can improve the rate of the preferences for AI-based psychotherapy.