COMPUTER-ASSISTED PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERVENTION - A REVIEW AND COMMENTARY

This paper reviews the 25-year history of computer-assisted psychological intervention, with particular emphasis on the current status of the computer in psychotherapy. The computer is playing an increasingly important role in personality and behavioral assessment, diagnostic interviewing and history taking, health education, mental health consultation, and clinical training. In these areas, the reliability, validity, and utility of the computer compares very favorably with that of the clinician. Evaluations of the use of the computer with psychiatric patients conclude that even those who are quite disturbed interact very successfully with computers, including many patients who are unable to interact with mental health personnel. Computer-assisted psychotherapy programs have been most successfully implemented in the areas of cognitive and behavioral psychotherapy. In the case of psychodynamic psychotherapy, computer programs appear to be limited by our failure to make fully explicit the rules governing therapist behavior and by the continuing inability of computers to comprehend natural language.