‘Can a chatbot be a responsible therapist? Dartmouth professor aims to find out’ (Valley News – August 13, 2026 – Full article)
Article Excerpt: Therabot, built inside Dartmouth’s Center for Technology and Behavioral Health, is the first generative AI mental health chatbot to show clinical results in a published trial. Heinz, an attending psychiatrist at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, began the work in 2019 with clinical psychologist Nicholas Jacobson — four years before ChatGPT made the technology a household name.
Seven years in, the Dartmouth Therabot isn’t available to the public. It exists only inside approved research studies, and Heinz couldn’t say when, or whether, it will reach the market. Apps calling themselves AI therapists, meanwhile, are already downloadable — reaching users years ahead of trial data.
Other products have even used the same name. A GPT-4 tool that analyzes uploaded chat logs for relationship problems calls itself Therabot; so does a subscription wellness app with mood tracking. Neither is connected to Dartmouth.
Heinz thinks his tool could fill a gap and do it ethically. “There’s a huge gap between people who need treatment and the availability for it,” he said. A chatbot doesn’t keep office hours or have a waitlist.