1: Episode 1: Chatbots

Are chatbots a threat to meaningful human connection — or something more complex and interesting? In this episode of Psychocultural, Candida Yates is joined by Emerita Professor Lynn Froggett and Dr Jacob Johanssen to explore one of the most urgent and fascinating questions of our digital age. With a billion users worldwide and growing, AI chatbots are no longer a niche curiosity but instead are companions, confidants, and for some, even romantic partners. Rather than dismissing this phenomenon with alarm, the guests bring psychosocial, psychoanalytic and media studies expertise and thinking to bear on what these relationships are, and what human needs they are meeting. From the isolated older person calling their mental health nurse multiple times a day, to the bereaved individual struggling to find words for unspeakable grief, the speakers argue that the real question is not whether chatbots are fake humans (they are not) but what kind of ""machinic other"" they are, and what their distinctive possibilities might be. Central to the discussion are the concepts of containment, narcissism, and alterity. The guests debate whether chatbots offer genuine containment or merely its aesthetic simulation and why that distinction matters. Lynn Froggett introduces the idea of the chatbot as an aesthetic container: not a therapist, but as an entity with access to the vast cultural sediment of human language, capable of producing resonance rather than mere mirroring, and generating new imagery and feeling in the user. Jacob Johanssen raises important concerns about the sycophantic, user-affirming design of commercial chatbots and the narcissistic dynamics that are reinforced when interacting with AI and chatbots. Both guests note that the technology is evolving and discriminating, and that informed use does holds real promise as an adjunct to human encounters in therapy and in relational and community settings. The discussion is refreshingly free of either techno-utopianism or technophobia and is essential listening for anyone navigating life alongside AI. Guest Biographies: Jacob Johanssen is Associate Professor in Communications at St Mary’s University in London. His research interests revolve around digital media and psychoanalysis. His most recent books are Media and Psychoanalysis: A Critical Introduction with Steffen Krüger and Fantasy, Online Misogyny and the Manosphere: Male Bodies of Dis/Inhibition. Jacob is editor of the Counterspace section of the journal Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, sits on the executive committee of the Association for Psychosocial Studies and is a Founding Scholar of the British Psychoanalytic Council. Lynn Froggett is Professor Emerita of Psychosocial Studies at the University of Lancashire. Over the last twenty years she has led a succession of research programmes concerned with the ‘uses’ of art and the nature of aesthetic experience in settings as diverse as health, social care, criminal justice, education, communities, and museums. Her research trajectory has led her to develop methodologies which respond to sensory, affective and discursive registers of experience. Her current work focuses on the interface between art and technology, the nature and value of immersive experience and the Future of Ageing. A forthcoming book Ageing and the Machine will consider design of relational technologies with older people, with Jill Bennett and Gail Kenning. She is commissioning co-editor for a Policy Press series: Advances in Biographical Methods. Lynn is one of the founders of the Association for Psychosocial Studies and continues to develop the field as Chair. She is also a Founding Scholar of the British Psychoanalytic Council and of the International Research Group for Psycho-Societal Analysis. She is Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, Visiting Professor at the University of Ulster and Visiting Professorial Fellow at the University of New South Wales. Her Research Gate profile documents many of her publications: researchgate.net/profile/Lynn-Froggett. Host and Executive Producer: Candida Yates, Professor Emerita in Psychosocial and Cultural Studies: www.thepsychoculturalagency.com Audio Producer and Theme Music Composer: Callum Blades This podcast is co-sponsored by the British Psychoanalytic Council, Bournemouth University and The Psychocultural Agency.