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Ethical AI Practice: For Counsellors and Psychotherapists in the UK
"A very welcome book... that will enable all of us who are practitioners to reflect on our practice and ensure we continue to work ethically and safely with our clients."— Dr Susan Dale MBACP (Accred), Ethics Lead, BACP
A practitioner's framework for navigating AI ethically, protecting clients, and practising with clarity.
Your clients are already using AI. They are turning to ChatGPT about their anxiety, using mood-tracking apps between sessions, and checking your guidance against what an AI told them. AI is also quietly embedded in the tools you already use — your email, your calendar, your search engine, your phone.
Every practitioner is ethically called upon to understand how to keep their practice and their clients safe in this evolving landscape. This book gives you the framework to do that.
What you will find
The Critical Thinking Matrix — Ten domains and thirty-five reflective questions for ethically evaluating any AI tool you encounter, whether it exists today or arrives five years from now.
Your Therapeutic Contract — What your contract needs to include around AI, with a practical clause you can adapt for your modality.
Real Practice Scenarios — Four worked examples grounded in UK evaluating a commercial practice management tool, why client data must never enter a large language model, the invisible AI in voice-to-text dictation, and responding when a client discloses they are using a mental health app.
Defensible Decision-Making — Documentation templates and a supervision integration model, so your decisions become auditable and demonstrable.
The Amplify Intention Framework — Five principles for using AI ethically as a professional building your professional voice, creating your AI use policy, and staying current as the landscape moves.
The book is grounded in UK GDPR, MHRA guidance, NICE standards, and the ethical frameworks of BACP, UKCP, NCPS, and COSCA. It is written for practitioners, not technologists. No technical background is required.
Includes downloadable companion the Critical Thinking Matrix as a fillable PDF, a therapeutic contract clause, an AI use policy building guide, worked examples, and selected AI prompts.
About the Kenneth Kelly is the AI Lead at Counselling Tutor and a founding member of the Expert Reference Group on Artificial Intelligence in Counselling and Psychotherapy (AIERG). He is a qualified counsellor, clinical supervisor, and educator, and the author of Basic Counselling A Student Guide.
A practitioner's framework for navigating AI ethically, protecting clients, and practising with clarity.
Your clients are already using AI. They are turning to ChatGPT about their anxiety, using mood-tracking apps between sessions, and checking your guidance against what an AI told them. AI is also quietly embedded in the tools you already use — your email, your calendar, your search engine, your phone.
Every practitioner is ethically called upon to understand how to keep their practice and their clients safe in this evolving landscape. This book gives you the framework to do that.
What you will find
The Critical Thinking Matrix — Ten domains and thirty-five reflective questions for ethically evaluating any AI tool you encounter, whether it exists today or arrives five years from now.
Your Therapeutic Contract — What your contract needs to include around AI, with a practical clause you can adapt for your modality.
Real Practice Scenarios — Four worked examples grounded in UK evaluating a commercial practice management tool, why client data must never enter a large language model, the invisible AI in voice-to-text dictation, and responding when a client discloses they are using a mental health app.
Defensible Decision-Making — Documentation templates and a supervision integration model, so your decisions become auditable and demonstrable.
The Amplify Intention Framework — Five principles for using AI ethically as a professional building your professional voice, creating your AI use policy, and staying current as the landscape moves.
The book is grounded in UK GDPR, MHRA guidance, NICE standards, and the ethical frameworks of BACP, UKCP, NCPS, and COSCA. It is written for practitioners, not technologists. No technical background is required.
Includes downloadable companion the Critical Thinking Matrix as a fillable PDF, a therapeutic contract clause, an AI use policy building guide, worked examples, and selected AI prompts.
About the Kenneth Kelly is the AI Lead at Counselling Tutor and a founding member of the Expert Reference Group on Artificial Intelligence in Counselling and Psychotherapy (AIERG). He is a qualified counsellor, clinical supervisor, and educator, and the author of Basic Counselling A Student Guide.
214 pages, Paperback
Published June 3, 2026
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