AI in Therapy Observation Grid, Clinical Worksheet for Counselors (PDF)

A patient mentions in passing that last night, at two in the morning when there was no one to call, they had a long conversation with a chatbot. What do you do with that?

This is an eight-part grid for organising your own attention when a patient uses AI between sessions. It is neither a questionnaire nor an instrument but a discipline for observation, completed from memory over the first months of work.

WHAT IS INSIDE (11 pages)
A · Establishing the practice. Which tools, since when, disclosed or discovered.
B · Function. What state precedes it, and what happens to that state afterwards.
C · Relation to the frame. How use moves around breaks, ruptures and disappointments.
D · Effect on the material. The therapy that grows calmer without growing deeper.
E · Relational configuration. Instrumental use, or something with continuity and a name.
F · Risk. Reassurance-seeking from an unlimited source, and ideas reinforced rather than tested.
G · Countertransference log, including the relief we would rather not notice.
H · Your own practice. Scribes, consent, and what delegating the note does to the thinking.

Each section comes with writing lines and a notes area, plus a page on how to use the grid and a closing note.

WHO IT IS FOR
Psychotherapists, counsellors, psychologists and clinical trainees. It is written from a psychodynamic and relational position, but the questions concern things any orientation attends to, such as the frame, the timing and what changes in the room.

WHAT IT IS NOT
It has no scoring, no norms and no diagnostic status. It does not replace clinical training, supervision or your own judgement, and it does not establish a standard of care.

DETAILS
• Instant digital download, 1 PDF, 11 pages
• US Letter, prints on A4 with "fit to page"
• Licensed for use in your own clinical practice, printed as many times as your work requires; not for resale or redistribution

The wider argument behind the grid, about what changes when a patient talks to a machine, is developed in the AI Psychotherapy Clinical Compendium in this shop.

WHO WROTE IT
I'm Alberto Del Bove, a psychologist and psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapist trained in Rome, in private practice with adults. Everything in The Consulting Room is written and clinically reviewed by me, and most of it started as material I needed in my own sessions before it became something to share.

If you have a question before buying, or you want to know whether this fits the way you work, send me a message through Etsy and I will answer personally. If it turns out to be useful, a short review helps other clinicians find it.