Psychology student and mental health practitioner experiences of and perspectives on Client101, a virtual client chatbot training tool

Limited practice opportunities and recent developments in natural language processing have spurred the development of systems housing virtual client chatbots to be used as psychotherapy training tools. Initial studies convey the potential of virtual client chatbots to support the mental health practitioner in developing key skills in the delivery of therapy. These studies are limited in that they often do not include mental health professionals or students in the testing of their virtual client chatbots, nor focus on a particular learning context in their evaluation of the training tool. This study addresses these shortcomings by exploring mental health professionals’ and psychology students’ experiences of and perspectives on Client101, a virtual client chatbot training tool, in relation to specific training contexts. Participants (Masters psychology students who are in training to become qualified therapists, counsellors and youth peer workers) interacted with the virtual client chatbots housed in the Client101 platform and then completed questionnaires and interviews. This mixed-methods study uses a convergent parallel design: questionnaires and interviews were analysed separately and then integrated to produce the overall results. Questionnaires were analysed via descriptive statistics and participant interviews were reflexively thematically analysed. The questionnaire responses supplement the qualitative data. Participants reported they were surprised how human-like the virtual client chatbots were but also reported limitations to their realism. These limitations included the perception that the chatbots were too compliant, not complex enough and did not evolve. Participants considered that Client101 could supplement their training context and provide a safe place for the practitioner to build confidence in key skills prior to interacting with real clients. Participants provided recommendations for how Client101 should be implemented. This study revealed that there is a need to supplement the existing psychology and mental health training context with more opportunities to build confidence in key skills prior to interacting with real clients. Client101 could enhance the learning context through providing a safe, accessible, independent and effective means of practice. However, the virtual client chatbots should convey greater resistance and complexity to be more effective learning tools.