technology clinic at the national institute of mental health and neurosciencesduring the pandemic when citybased ux designer harshini raji was feeling overwhelmed she turned to the internet for answers thats when she decided to create a mental wellness chatbot the script was created using algorithms and by speaking to mental health professionals says the 29yearold the app was designed to understand a users routine and give cues on coping with anxiety my userbase grew during the lockdown but dropped soon after i was planning to shut it down but received messages from people who said they were dependent on it now i pay out of my pocket to keep the bot going psychologist cindhu menaka says using chatbots to help with mental illness will reduce a persons coping mechanism and lead to a loss of critical and creative thinking the human mind is capable of working in ways that no algorithm can replicate but it is being dulled by a chatbots readymade answers she says scheduled meetings with therapists help a person selfregulate emotions the gap between sessions is meant to build resilience research has found that users report feeling less lonely when interacting with chatbots which can have a positive effect on mental wellbeing however research has also shown that overinteracting reduces trustworthiness in reallife relationships besides the market is unregulated so one must be wary of the information one is offloading to a bot menaka says some of her younger clients after interacting regularly with their ai therapists and getting the right emotional responses from them have stopped making an effort to maintain real relationships if you have a bot that is never going to question or argue with you and give you all the right answers why would you want a living breathing friend