Job Check
Clinical and Counseling Psychologists
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.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Conduct assessments of patients' risk for harm to self or others.Mostly human for now
- 02Document patient information including session notes, progress notes, recommendations, and treatment plans.AI could speed this up a lot
- 03Identify psychological, emotional, or behavioral issues and diagnose disorders, using information obtained from interviews, tests, records, or reference materials.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 04Write reports on clients and maintain required paperwork.AI could speed this up a lot
- 05Counsel individuals, groups, or families to help them understand problems, deal with crisis situations, define goals, and develop realistic action plans.Mostly human for now
- 06Interact with clients to assist them in gaining insight, defining goals, and planning action to achieve effective personal, social, educational, or vocational development and adjustment.Mostly human for now
- 07Collect information about individuals or clients, using interviews, case histories, observational techniques, and other assessment methods.People already use AI for this at work
- 08Evaluate the effectiveness of counseling or treatments and the accuracy and completeness of diagnoses, modifying plans or diagnoses as necessary.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 09Use a variety of treatment methods, such as psychotherapy, hypnosis, behavior modification, stress reduction therapy, psychodrama, or play therapy.Mostly human for now
- 10Develop therapeutic and treatment plans based on clients' interests, abilities, or needs.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
Tasks from O*NET® 31.0 (US Department of Labor, CC BY 4.0, changed by us), most important first. “Already use” comes from Anthropic’s data on real work chats with Claude; “could speed up” from task ratings made with GPT-4 in 2023.
Four studies, side by side
None is a forecast of job loss6%of this job’s work time goes to tasks that people already do with Claude at work, counting tasks where AI only helps as half (2026).Anthropic, 2026
37%of this job’s tasks an AI model could do in half the time, counting tasks that need extra tools as half (rated in 2023).Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin and Rock, 2023
Above 71% of jobsin how often and how well AI helped with this job’s work in Microsoft Copilot chats (2024 data).Microsoft Research (Tomlinson et al.), 2025
Your human edge
The main tasks with no real AI use seen and no big speed-up expected. This is where your skill counts most today.
- Conduct assessments of patients' risk for harm to self or others.
- 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.