Problems of artificial emotions in mental therapy

Development of artificial intelligence has enabled us to design software agents and robots having more humanlike behaviors. In particular, research focus on emotions in this discipline has contributed to this type of design methods. This research trend leads to application of artificial intelligence to healing for humans, in particular, mental therapy. However, it has sufficiently not been either investigated or discussed how artificial emotions of software agents and robots in the specific contexts of mental therapy can affect mental states of individuals, the societies, and cultures. This paper discusses some problems of artificial emotions in mental therapy from the perspectives of the sociology of emotions, clinical sociology, and the sociology of health and illness, in particular, relating with the concept of double bind.