🧠 TheraPy – Conversational Therapy Chatbot

Status: 🛠 Under active development
Technologies: Python, Flask, Hugging Face Transformers, DialoGPT

TheraPy is a simple chatbot designed to interact with users in natural language and serve as a virtual companion in emotionally difficult moments. It combines a web-based Flask frontend with a conversational AI backend using a pre-trained model from Hugging Face.

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🎯 Project Goals

• 🤖 Conversational Interaction: Create a chatbot that feels emotionally responsive and empathetic
• 🌐 Web-Based Interface: Allow access via a simple browser-based UI using Flask
• 🧠 NLP-Powered: Use a pre-trained transformer model (DialoGPT) to generate responses
• ☁️ Future Hosting: Deploy the chatbot on PythonAnywhere

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🚀 Features

• DialoGPT Integration: Uses the pre-trained microsoft/DialoGPT-medium model via Hugging Face Transformers
• Flask Backend: Serves a minimalistic UI with chat input and dynamic response rendering
• Session Memory: Keeps conversational context during a session
• Clean Project Structure: Ready for further enhancements (e.g. sentiment analysis, logging)

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🔧 Installation & Setup

⚠️ Recommended: Create the virtual environment outside the project folder to avoid pushing it accidentally.

# 1. Clone this repository
git clone https://github.com/your-username/therapy-chatbot.git
cd therapy-chatbot

# 2. Create virtual environment one level above the project folder
cd ..
python -m venv venv-therapy
venv-therapy\Scripts\activate  # Windows
# or
source venv-therapy/bin/activate  # macOS/Linux

# 3. Re-enter project folder
cd therapy-chatbot

# 4. Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

# 5. Run the app
python run.py

➡️ Then open your browser at http://127.0.0.1:5000

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🔮 Planned Features

• 🧭 Custom conversation flows (e.g. CBT techniques)
• 💬 Sentiment-aware response generation
• 🔐 GDPR-friendly local/session-based conversation history
• 🌈 UI improvements for better accessibility and aesthetics

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🛡 Disclaimer

This project is for educational and experimental purposes only.
It does not provide real psychological or medical advice and should not be used as a substitute for professional help.

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📄 License

MIT License – see LICENSE for details.