Automated Psychotherapy in a Spaceflight Environment: Advantages, Drawbacks, and Unknowns

Various behavioral and mental health issues have been reported by space crews for decades, with the overall number of mental health complications expected to be higher than is publicly known. The broad range of mental health complications encountered in space is expected to grow as people venture deeper into space. Issues with privacy, dual relationships, and delayed communications make rendering effective psychological therapy difficult in a spaceflight environment and nearly impossible in deep space. Automated psychotherapy offers a way to provide psychotherapy to astronauts both in deep space and low Earth orbit. Although automated psychotherapy is growing in popularity on Earth, little is known about its efficacy in space. This viewpoint serves to highlight the knowns and unknowns regarding this treatment modality for future deep space missions, and places an emphasis on the need for further research into the applicability and practicality of automated psychotherapy for the spaceflight environment, especially as it relates to long-duration, deep space missions.