Therapists of many stripes have long considered unconditional positive regard to be an essential element of a good therapeutic relationship. Initially popularized by Carl Rogers in the 1950s as a cornerstone of his client-centered therapy, it gradually spread to other therapeutic approaches—in practice, if not always in theory. Although seemingly less concerned with relationship skills and more with techniques, cognitive-behavioral therapists, for example, turn out to be just as committed to empathy and unconditional positive regard in their actual practice as therapists from other orientations.1 Even psychoanalysts have largely left behind their objective analytic neutrality in favor of a more empathetic relationship.

For Rogers, unconditional positive regard involved laying aside one’s own views and values in order to “enter another’s world without prejudice.”2 It meant creating a type of caring relationship “in which clients are accepted as they say they are.” Therapists “prize” the whole person, who is given “permission to have his own feelings, his own experiences.” In this empathetic “ambiance,” the client is emboldened to “feel more acceptance of all his own experience,” including that of which he might be “frightened or ashamed.”

Rogers and others believed the stance of positive regard fostered a therapeutic relationship of trust and support, thereby encouraging clients to be forthcoming and share their thoughts and feelings without fear of being judged or misunderstood. Such a “facilitative attitude” would help clients develop their own positive self-regard and approval.

In the extension of artificial intelligence (AI) to psychotherapy, we find the same ideal. The therapeutic chatbot Wysa, for instance, promises to be “someone who doesn’t judge,” an obvious........

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