The challenge
Psychotherapy is a notoriously hard discipline to practice and perfect due to a lack of ‘standardized patients’. Most trainee therapists also tend to learn on the job, which leaves patients dissatisfied when seeing inexperienced therapists.
The solution
Taking advantage of the extensive expressivity and conversational capabilities of the Furhat robot, Robert’s solution is to build several virtual standardized patients that can be used to train therapists. Using the physical robot to “enact” the patient personas, psychotherapy students can practice their skills in a simulated situation that will be close to a real meeting.
The result
Robert’s research and work is ongoing, testing the psychotherapy robot with students and in research contexts – we look forward to seeing how this can revolutionize psychotherapy training!
Robert Johansson is a Clinical Psychologist and Associate Professor affiliated to Linköping University and Stockholm University, performing innovative research within psychotherapy training.
