AI + PSYCHOLOGY

Opportunities and Challenges of Artificial Intelligence in Psychological Counseling and Therapy Services

  • LI Wentian
Expand
  • Department of Clinical Psychology, Shanghai East Hospital, Tongji University, Shanghai 200120, China

Online published: 2025-09-03

Abstract

With the growing severity of global mental health disorders, the shortage of psychological health services has become an urgent challenge. The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, particularly generative pre-trained language models such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek, presents significant transformative potential in psychological counseling and therapy. This article focuses on the core application scenarios of AI in psychological counseling and therapy, analyzing AI’s advantages in expanding access to psychological services, promoting service personalization and integration, and improving service efficiency and accessibility, thereby elucidating its profound impact on mental health services. However, AI still has fundamental limitations in providing emotional support and understanding complex human psychological activities. It cannot replace the core role of human psychological counselors/therapists in establishing therapeutic alliances and providing emotional care. The application of AI faces multiple challenges including ethical issues, technical limitations, and professional role redefinition. This article proposes specific coping strategies, emphasizing that AI should be positioned as an auxiliary tool for mental health services and achieving improvements in both service efficiency and quality through human-machine collaboration.

Cite this article

LI Wentian . Opportunities and Challenges of Artificial Intelligence in Psychological Counseling and Therapy Services[J]. Psychological Communications, 2025 , 8(2) : 93 -98 . DOI: 10.12100/j.issn.2096-5494.225014

References

[1] Bordin, E. S. (1979). The generalizability of the psychoanalytic concept of the working alliance.Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 16(3), 252-260. doi: 10.1037/h0085885
[2] Economist Impact. (2024). Rethinking mental health care: Harnessing new approaches. Retrived January 15, 2025 from https://assets.ctfassets.net/9crgcb5vlu43/3qCj2iM9UBraQsuAro5cYe/e7995a5f15895cee3ed61cc693d93173/bi_mental_health_care_report_a4-v7.pdf
[3] Ettman, C. K., & Galea, S. (2023). The potential influence of AI on population mental health. JMIR Ment Health,10, e49936. doi: 10.2196/49936
[4] Ferrara, E. (2024). Fairness and bias in artificial intelligence: A brief survey of sources, impacts, and mitigation strategies.Sci, 6, 3. doi: 10.3390/sci6010003
[5] Fitzpatrick K. K., Darcy A., & Vierhile M. (2017). Delivering cognitive behavior therapy to young adults with symptoms of depression and anxiety using a fully automated conversational agent (Woebot): A randomized controlled trial. JMIR Ment Health, 4(2), e7785. doi: 10.2196/mental.7785
[6] Fouad N. A., Grus C. L., Hatcher R. L., Kaslow N. J., Hutchings P. S., Madson M. B., .. & Crossman, R. E. (2009). Competency benchmarks: A model for understanding and measuring competence in professional psychology across training levels.Training and Education in Professional Psychology, 3(4), S5-S26. doi: 10.1037/a0015832
[7] Guo Z., Lai A., Thygesen J. H., Klinger E., Torous J., Cao B., & Jacobson N. C. (2024). Large language models for mental health applications: Systematic review.JMIR Mental Health, 11, e57400. doi: 10.2196/57400
[8] Heinz M. V., Mackin D. M., Trudeau B. M., Bhattacharya S., Wang Y., Banta H. A., .. & Jacobson, N. C. (2025). Randomized trial of a generative AI chatbot for mental health treatment.NEJM AI, 2(4). doi: 10.1056/AIoa2400802
[9] Iwaya L. H., Babar M. A., Rashid A., & Wijayarathna C. (2023). On the privacy of mental health apps: An empirical investigation and its implications for apps development.Empir Softw Eng, 28(1), 2. doi: 10.1007/s10664-022-10236-0
[10] Lee E. E., Torous J., De Choudhury M., Depp C. A., Graham S. A., Kim H. C., .. & Jeste, D. V. (2021). Artificial intelligence for mental health care: Clinical applications, barriers, facilitators, and artificial wisdom. Biol Psychiatry Cogn Neurosci Neuroimaging, 6(9), 856-864. doi: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2021.02.001
[11] Lucas G. M., Gratch J., King A., & Morency L. P. (2014). It’s only a computer: Virtual humans increase willingness to disclose. Comput Hum Behav, 37, 94-100. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2014.04.043
[12] Maidaniuk I., Tetiana T. S. O. I., Hoian I., Doichyk M., Patlaichuk O., & Stupak O. (2022). The problem of artificial intelligence in contemporary philosophy.BRAIN, 13(4), 436-449.
[13] Morrow E., Zidaru T., Ross F., Mason C., Patel K. D., Ream M., & Stockley R. (2023). Artificial intelligence technologies and compassion in healthcare: A systematic scoping review. Front Psychol, 13, 971044. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.971044
[14] National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation. (2023). The behavioral health care workforce: Shortages and solutions. NIHCM Foundation.
[15] O’Neil, C. (2016). Weapons of math destruction: How big data increases inequality and threatens democracy. New York: Crown Publishers.
[16] Olawade D. B., Wada O. Z., Odetayo A., David-Olawade A. C., Asaolu F., & Eberhardt J. (2024). Enhancing mental health with artificial intelligence: Current trends and future prospects. J Med Surg Public Health,3, 100099. doi: 10.1016/j.glmedi.2024.100099
[17] Ovsyannikova D., Oldemburgo de Mello V., & Inzlicht M. (2025). Third-party evaluators perceive AI as more compassionate than expert humans.Communications Psychology, 3, 4. doi: 10.1038/s44271-024-00182-6
[18] Petana, G., & Rosa, C. A. (2020). Digital transformation and the impact in knowledge management. In KMIS (pp. 180-187). doi: 10.5220/0010134001800187
[19] Provoost S., Lau H. M., Ruwaard J., & Riper H. (2017). Embodied conversational agents in clinical psychology: A scoping review. J Med Int Res, 19(5), e151. doi: 10.2196/jmir.6553
[20] Rahsepar Meadi M., Sillekens T., Metselaar S., van der Drift, M. A., Cabibihan J. J., Apers S., .. & Olthof M. (2025). Exploring the ethical challenges of conversational AI in mental health care: Scoping review.JMIR Mental Health, 12, e60432. doi: 10.2196/60432
[21] Rollwage M., Habicht J., Juechems K., Ramlakhan S., & Fleming S. M. (2023). Using conversational AI to facilitate mental health assessments and improve clinical efficiency within psychotherapy services: Real-world observational study.JMIR AI, 2, e44358. doi: 10.2196/44358
[22] Rubin M., Arnon H., Huppert J. D., & Perry A. (2024). Considering the Role of Human Empathy in AI-Driven Therapy.JMIR Mental Health, 11, e56529. doi: 10.2196/56529
[23] Sartre J.-P.(2007). Existentialism is a humanism (C. Macomber, Trans.). Yale University Press. (Original work published 1946)
[24] Sharma A., Lin I. W., Miner A. S., Atkins D. C., & Althoff T. (2023). Human-AI collaboration enables more empathic conversations in text-based peer-to-peer mental health support.Nature Machine Intelligence, 5, 46-57. doi: 10.1038/s42256-022-00593-2
[25] Sisson, K. (2016). Shaping the world of work: Time for a UK jobs strategy (Warwick Papers in Industrial Relations, No. 105). Industrial Relations Research Unit, University of Warwick.
[26] Stade E. C., Stirman S. W., Ungar L. H., Boland C. L., Schwartz H. A., Yaden D. B., .. & Eichstaedt, J. C. (2024). Large language models could change the future of behavioral healthcare: A proposal for responsible development and evaluation.npj Mental Health Research, 3, 12. doi: 10.1038/s44184-024-00056-z
[27] Thakkar A., Gupta A., & De Sousa A. (2024). Artificial intelligence in positive mental health: a narrative review.Frontiers in Digital Health, 6, 1280235. doi: 10.3389/fdgth.2024.1280235
[28] Thapa, C., & Camtepe, S. (2021). Precision health data: Requirements, challenges and existing techniques for data security and privacy.Comput Biol Med, 129, 104130. doi: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2020.104130
[29] Trautmann, S., Jürgen Rehm, & Hans:lrich Wittchen. (2016). The economic costs of mental disorders: Do our societies react appropriately to the burden of mental disorders?.Embo Reports, 17(9), e201642951.
[30] Timmons A. C., Duong J. B., Simo Fiallo N., Lee T., Vo H. P. Q., Ahle M. W., .. & Chaspari T. (2023). A call to action on assessing and mitigating bias in artificial intelligence applications for mental health.Perspectives on Psychological Science, 18(5), 1062-1096. doi: 10.1177/17456916221134490
[31] Weizenbaum, J. (1976). Computer power and human reason: From judgment to calculation. W. H. Freeman & Co.
[32] World Health Organization. (2022). World mental health report: Transforming mental health for all. Geneva: World Health Organization
Outlines

/

〈 〉