Theory of robocounselling | RoboCounsellor

This is an attempt to explain in simple terms why the robocounselling paradigm works, despite the initial thought that it couldn't possibly.

Carl Rogers' theory
Carl Rogers, the founder of Person-Centred Therapy, assumes that the most basic drive in a human being is that to self-actualization. It is this drive, nurtured by the skilled counsellor's attitude, that allows the client to sort things out for herself.

The counsellor embodies the "core conditions" in a session, namely

genuiness (being honest, transparent, hiding nothing)
acceptance (having and demonstrating unconditional positive regard, with no hint of criticism or judgment toward the client)
empathy (seeing and feeling things as if from inside the client, with the client's own internal frame of reference)

The counsellor gets the client talking, and the client gives some details of her topic, whatever is on her mind. The topic might be issues at work, or a relationship problem, personal debts, whatever. Just everyday things that people have trouble with. Every now and then, but without interrupting, the counsellor tentatively paraphrases and summarises the details of this just-spoken chunk of topic back to the client , both as to factual and emotional content, to the extent that the emotional content can be perceived. In this way, the client gets to look at her topic again, from a slightly different viewpoint, and can sort it out to some extent in her own mind. Bit by bit it should become clearer. The counsellor's reflection back to the client is tentative, so that if she gets it a bit wrong, the client can correct this.

In very basic terms, that is how Rogerian therapy works. Not only does the counsellor offer no advice, but the counsellor also offers no interpretation.

How RoboCounsellor follows this theory
How can this possibly be duplicated by a set of static web pages, that cannot understand or act upon any of the words the client is saying or anything that the client is feeling?

Well, it works like this. The client sits down in front of a computer with things arranged so that she won't be distracted for maybe 30 minutes, navigates to the web site, and gets ready to start the session. She opens up a text editor like Notepad to take notes on the session as needed, and in the case of the Rogerian counselling module to write down details of her topic for this session. The RoboCounsellor consists of a set of linked web pages that are static, i.e., each page does not change its content at all. A typical page fills one screen without scrolling and is in two columns. There is an audio file attached to the page that plays as soon as the page is opened. The audio is a simple command to the client, like "OK. Write down some details of your topic as it seems to you now". The words in the audio also appear across the top of the web page, just in case there is something wrong with the audio or the client forgets what she is supposed to be doing.

She executes the command, in this case by typing out some details of her topic in Notepad. There are some response options in the left-hand column. She selects an appropriate one, in this case maybe "I have written down a paragraph about my topic". Also in the left-hand column is a section headed "Write on worksheet", which will give an example of the sort of thing that the client should be writing down on her report. In the right-hand column are any needed notes on carrying out this particular command or explaining some of the optional responses available.

OK. So she clicks on the "I have written down a paragraph about my topic" link. This causes the linked web page to open up. The audio immediately says something like, "Thank you. Summarise the factual content of that paragraph." So she looks both at the words she just typed and, in her mind's eye, that part of her topic. And she paraphases and summarises the important points in it. She clicks the appropriate option. The linked web page says something like "Good. Write down how you feel about that paragraph." So the client looks over her reaction to that event and notes it down.

Click. "All right. Write down another paragraph of your topic" . . . "Summarise it" . . . "Feelings?" . . . "Another paragraph" . . ."Summarise it" . . . "Feelings?". These steps are abbreviated here, but each is as complete as in the earlier examples.

Next is a screen asking the client how it's going, as the RoboCounsellor can't tell, of course, not being human. If it's going fine like this, the client just continues as before, giving details, summarising, noting any feelings etc. If the client want to edit an existing paragraph, she can copy/paste it forward to the current place in her notes, then make any needed changes. She can edit any further paragraphs like this before continuing with writing new paragraphs. If she wants to, she can redo the whole thing from scratch.

Why it works
Now, what is happening is that in doing all this, she is examining and personally reflecting on her topic in minute detail. The rewrite is not so much about correcting any typos that she made, but more the point that her topic is changing before her eyes as she clarifies parts of it and sorts it out in her mind. And this is exactly what takes place in a normal Rogerian therapy session.

The client can continue like this until she has sorted out the whole thing and is not bothered any more by it. Or maybe until she runs out of time for today and although she feels somewhat better about her topic it is not fully dealt with yet. Or maybe the whole thing stalls and needs troubleshooting, which is a whole different subject and is well in hand but is discussed on a different page. The client rates the topic on a scale of 0-10 based on how much she considers it is distressing or disturbing her at the moment of review. She does this both at the start and at the end of the session, to give herself a comparison and record of how things have been going.

Hopefully, this will give you a good idea of how the RoboCounsellor works with a client in a straightforward Rogerian session when things are going well.