Will AI replace Clinical and Counseling Psychologists?
AI reaches a large part of this job’s work.
52/100
High exposure
More exposed to AI than 83% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 4% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 68% of the work
What the job involves
Assess, diagnose, and treat mental and emotional disorders of individuals through observation, interview, and psychological tests. Help individuals with distress or maladjustment understand their problems through their knowledge of case history, interviews with patients, and theory. Provide individual or group counseling services to assist individuals in achieving more effective personal, social, educational, and vocational development and adjustment. May design behavior modification programs and consult with medical personnel regarding the best treatment for patients.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Already happening(1)
- Collect information about individuals or clients, using interviews, case histories, observational techniques, and other assessment methods.
Within reach(20)
- Document patient information including session notes, progress notes, recommendations, and treatment plans.
- Write reports on clients and maintain required paperwork.
- Evaluate the effectiveness of counseling or treatments and the accuracy and completeness of diagnoses, modifying plans or diagnoses as necessary.
- Develop therapeutic and treatment plans based on clients' interests, abilities, or needs.
- Develop and implement individual treatment plans, specifying type, frequency, intensity, and duration of therapy.
and 15 more
Out of reach(9)
- Conduct assessments of patients' risk for harm to self or others.
- Identify psychological, emotional, or behavioral issues and diagnose disorders, using information obtained from interviews, tests, records, or reference materials.
- Counsel individuals, groups, or families to help them understand problems, deal with crisis situations, define goals, and develop realistic action plans.
- Interact with clients to assist them in gaining insight, defining goals, and planning action to achieve effective personal, social, educational, or vocational development and adjustment.
- Use a variety of treatment methods, such as psychotherapy, hypnosis, behavior modification, stress reduction therapy, psychodrama, or play therapy.
and 4 more
Also called
Counselor · Licensed Psychologist · Psychologist · Therapist · Clinical Counselor · Developmental Psychologist · Eating Disorder Psychologist · Geropsychologist
Related jobs
What these numbers mean
The score is the share of this job’s work, weighted by how important and frequent each task is, that AI could do in half the time: tasks an AI model could do alone count in full, tasks that need software built on AI count half.
“AI already used” is the share of the work in tasks where people are recorded using AI today. “As AI tools mature” counts every task AI could halve, with or without extra software.
The percentile compares the score with every job’s, weighted by how many people in the US do each one. Exposure means AI could change how the work is done, not that the job goes away. These are estimates for the typical job, not predictions.
Sources
- O*NET 31.0 Database, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
- GPTs are GPTs: Labor market impact potential of LLMs (task labels), Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin & Rock (2023), OpenAI and University of Pennsylvania
- Anthropic Economic Index: labor market impacts (task penetration), Anthropic
- Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (national and metropolitan areas), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics