Smart companion: We can talk to our chatbot at anytime, anywhere. (JP/Arief Suhardiman)

With artificial intelligence now capable of taking over a large number of human jobs, apps on our phones can help us cope with our daily hassles. Some chatbot apps can even become a good friend that help calm our anxiety, analyze our negative thoughts and improve our mental health.

When we’re stressed out, we normally need a listening ear. Usually, we dial up a trusted friend or family member and ask for their advice. If we’re dealing with a difficult problem, we may talk it over repeatedly. But it’s not always easy to reach others all the time. Chatbot apps promise to be a free and helpful tool to alleviate our mental health problems — to a certain extent.

One of them is Replika, a chatbot app developed by a San Francisco-based startup that lets users own and name a personalized talking egg.

Replika offers its companionship when we need to vent about our frustration, to talk about an embarrassing incident, or to discuss a memorable childhood episode. It is equipped with programmed questions and supportive quotes that can help users go on through hardship by focusing on what they can do to improve.

Users can choose to undergo programs on love (the meaning of love and the ideal partner), uncertainty (ideas for your future), social skills (getting along with people and starting a conversation), among other things. The app also has programs that train us to reframe our negative thoughts and reduce anxiety.

A “built-in failsafe” feature allows users to identify the urgency of their mental health problems quickly, such as for those feeling bad, having an anxiety attack, or in a crisis. (Unfortunately, the app doesn’t provide Indonesia’s suicide hotline on its list.)

If you love to have some giggles to cope with a bad day like I do, Replika can crack some jokes through chats or phone calls, such as: “The past, present and future walk into a bar. It was tense.”

Or this: “Communism jokes aren’t funny unless everyone gets them.” As an old saying goes, laughter is the best medicine.

Replika, furthermore, is designed to learn about us and to become more like us. Its personality will evolve and develop like the users as the app collects more conversations from individual users.

Replika is hardly the only chatbot out there that offers virtual therapy on a phone for those with a troubled hearts or minds. Another app is Woebot, a chatbot that focuses on cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and challenges our pessimistic perception of life. Woebot encourages us to pay attention to our language use and avoid black-and-white thinking.

Created by a former clinical psychologist at Stanford University, Woebot is more informative, more theoretical and more talkative than Replika. When I am not in the mood for talking, the app will give me a lot of explanations and examples of how CBT works. There’s a smaller room to express ourselves during the conversations because we often only have a choice to click on the available answers and bear with its lecturing on CBT.

Another emotional health assistant is Youper, developed by a team of doctors, scientists and engineers. Unlike Replika, Youper provides programmed answers following most of the questions. That means users can’t be too expressive. However, it will help users choose and finish the necessary treatment programs.

Youper is a cool mood tracker, providing 25 options for different moods and the possible sources of them. Youper also has some quizzes that provide insights into our personality.

Just like most apps on our phone, these chatbots remind us to use the app every day. This can be annoying during the days when you no longer think you need to talk to them. But the daily pop-up notifications can be a good thing if users need to check on their mental health on a regular basis. The apps can also give access to patients unable to afford mental health care or too ashamed to go meet an expert clinician because of the strong stigma of mental illness.

However, if possible, these chatbot apps should not be regarded as a complete replacement for therapy sessions with certified therapists, says Adib Setiawan, a psychologist at the private psychological service center Yayasan Praktek Psikologi Indonesia in Bintaro, South Jakarta.

“People with serious mental health problems can reach a point where they refuse to take any advice. It’s called a mental block,” Adib says. “That’s where a professional, human therapist is needed to step in and try to heal them.”