The AI Our Clients Are Using:

Clients are already turning to AI tools for emotional support, self-reflection, relationship advice, crisis-related guidance, and mental health information—often without ever mentioning it in therapy. For behavioral health professionals, this creates an emerging ethical and clinical challenge: how to respond with curiosity, competence, and care when clients bring AI-generated content or AI-based support experiences into treatment.

As tools like ChatGPT, Woebot, Wysa, Character.AI, and other AI-powered platforms become more accessible, clinicians need practical guidance for understanding what clients are using, why they are drawn to these tools, and how to address AI use without compromising the therapeutic relationship. This course offers behavioral health professionals a thoughtful way to engage in these conversations while staying grounded in ethics, clinical judgment, and client-centered care.

Dr. Sofia Georgiadou and Dr. Jay Burke bring expertise in clinical training, supervision, ethics, systemic therapy, and emerging applications of AI in behavioral health education and practice. Dr. Georgiadou’s background in culturally responsive counseling, marriage and family therapy education, qualitative research, and supervision supports a nuanced approach to client experiences with technology, identity, and help-seeking. Dr. Burke’s teaching, scholarship, and presentations on the ethics of AI in mental health, along with his clinical and academic leadership in marriage and family therapy, directly inform this course’s focus on the AI tools clients are already using and the ethical questions clinicians must be prepared to address.

Their approach is practical, ethically grounded, and clinically relevant. Rather than asking clinicians to become AI experts, this course helps participants build enough familiarity with common AI tools to have informed, honest conversations with clients. The presenters will connect current client behaviors, emerging research, and professional ethics principles from organizations such as APA, NBCC, NASW, and AAMFT to concrete strategies clinicians can apply in practice.

This course will address AI-powered tools and platforms commonly used by clients for mental health support, including ChatGPT, Woebot, Wysa, Character.AI, and other AI-based resources. Topics include why clients use these tools, such as accessibility, immediacy, anonymity, emotional support, and curiosity; the promising outcomes and symptom reduction reported in emerging research; and the safety gaps that remain, including inappropriate responses to suicidal ideation and inconsistent crisis handling.

The course also explores four critical areas of concern: crisis safety and privacy, emotional attachment and relationship formation with AI companions, AI hallucinations and misinformation, and patterns of overuse or dependence. Participants will learn how to respond to clients’ AI use in ways that maintain the therapeutic alliance, support informed decision-making, and uphold ethical responsibilities.

Key Takeaways:

• Recognize the tools clients are already using: Gain familiarity with AI-powered platforms clients may be using for emotional support, mental health information, companionship, self-reflection, or crisis-related guidance.
• Understand what draws clients to AI support: Explore the clinical and practical reasons clients turn to AI tools, including accessibility, immediacy, privacy, emotional validation, and the desire for support between sessions.
• Respond with ethical and clinical confidence: Learn strategies for discussing AI use with clients in ways that support safety, informed decision-making, privacy awareness, and the therapeutic relationship.

Why this course?

• Timely guidance for an issue already in the therapy room: Clients are using AI tools now, often without telling their therapists, and behavioral health professionals need a clear way to address this reality before it creates ethical, clinical, or safety concerns.
• Practical ethics without unnecessary technical complexity: This course does not require clinicians to become technology specialists; it gives them the working knowledge needed to ask better questions, recognize potential risks, and respond thoughtfully when AI use becomes part of treatment.
• Expert instruction grounded in clinical practice and professional standards: With Dr. Georgiadou’s expertise in culturally responsive clinical education and supervision and Dr. Burke’s focused scholarship and presentations on AI ethics in mental health, participants receive guidance that is both clinically useful and ethically aligned.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify at least five AI-powered tools or platforms commonly used by clients for mental health support.
• Describe three key reasons clients use these tools.
• Apply four strategies for responding to clients who use AI tools for mental health support.

AI is becoming part of clients’ emotional lives, support systems, and decision-making processes, whether clinicians invite it into the conversation or not. This course offers a grounded, practical way for behavioral health professionals to meet that reality with ethical awareness, clinical curiosity, and the confidence to help clients think more carefully about the tools they are using.