SOMEWHERE in Northern Ireland this week, a therapist will type a client’s history into ChatGPT and ask it what to do next.

A GP will consult Copilot to ask about a patient’s possible diagnoses.

Neither is breaking any rules because no clear rules currently exist to break.

For three years I have run more survey research on how clinicians use and think about AI chatbots than any researcher I am aware of.

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My team has conducted surveys among doctors, nurses, patients, psychologists and psychotherapists in Ireland, the UK, the US, Europe, and beyond.

The findings consistently show widespread adoption of consumer chatbots, and a rapid increase year on year.

In 2026, we conducted a global survey of psychotherapists from 30 countries, which included practitioners in NI, ROI, and the UK.

More than half said they were already using generative AI in their practice, and of them, 85% said they used ChatGPT.

Four in five of the therapists my team surveyed had received no training in the tools they were using.

Like many professionals across Europe, mental health practitioners appear to be surreptitiously adopting these tools in their work.

Unlike doctors, the single........

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