How close are we to having chatbots officially offer counseling? (opens in new tab)

I see a human counselor, but I know at least two people in my close circle that talk to chatbots already to get through their thoughts.

Anthropic's recent data release shows that many users seek counsel from Claude.

There are at least three large offerings to companies as a counseling-like mental health benefit offering that costs companies much less than when employees seek traditional medical billing counseling.

I think the answer to how close is obvious: it has happened. And for some people who do not want to talk to a human counselor for whatever reason, this might be an angle to help meet mental health needs that reaches a new audience.

I appreciate the rigor being asked for in this article, but I wonder sometimes if the typical clinical trial data will go far enough.

"Someone is depressed, is randomly assigned to a therabot, decreases more in a measure of depression than controls, therabot is approved."

But what about longer term effects? What is someone learning or not learning about social relationships? There's an old adage that getting people with agoraphobia to therapy is part of the therapy — so what if someone interacting with a real human would be a lesson in lessening social anxiety or whatever?

I guess sometimes I worry that the protocol - driven nature of modern medicine will spill over into therabots and leave a lot of more complex issues on the table unaddressed.