Result: Lecter - A Large Language Model Chatbot for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Part 1: Applications of AI/ML in Natural Language Processing
Mental Illnesses such as Anxiety and Depression are fairly prevalent in modern society. Yet most people do not get diagnosed, cannot afford treatment, or there simply aren’t any readily available practitioners. In the worst-case scenario, avoiding treatment can increase the likelihood of self-harm in affected individuals, both emotionally and physically. A low-cost and easily available solution is required to provide the benefits of therapy to the masses. In this paper, we introduce “Lecter”, a chatbot solution specifically targeted to providing free mental health care to individuals who cannot access an actual therapist. With the help of the superior conversational abilities of an LLM (large language model), Lecter listens to the concerns and problems that patients face and helps them introspect, and better understand their feelings using a popular therapy technique called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Lecter provides its services using technologies such as an LLM called Mythomax, React Js for the front end of the application, Flask for the back end, and MongoDB for authentication and storage.