A psychotherapy training environment with virtual patients implemented using the furhat robot platform

Abstract

We present a demonstration system for psychotherapy training that uses the Furhat social robot platform to implement virtual patients. The system runs an educational program with various modules, starting with training of basic psychotherapeutic skills and then moves on to tasks where these skills need to be integrated. Such training relies heavily on observing and dealing with both verbal and non-verbal in-session patient behavior. Hence, the Furhat robot is an ideal platform for implementing this. This paper describes the rationale for this system and its implementation.