Orrù, L., & Mannarini, S. (2026).
Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy,
33(2), e70242.
Abstract
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies are rapidly evolving and their integration into psychological practices has progressively expanded, offering new tools for diagnosis, treatment and therapeutic monitoring. This review examines the transformative role of AI, particularly Natural Language Processing (NLP) systems, in reshaping clinical psychology and digital mental health interventions (DMHIs). In particular, it explores how AI and NLP can facilitate human-machine interaction in therapy by analysing how language is used within clinical conversations and providing personalized, real-time interventions. Following PRISMA guidelines, a systematic review of literature from 2019 to 2025 identified 17 studies that met inclusion criteria, emphasizing AI's use in psychological assessment and intervention. The review focuses on two key aspects: the functions and applications of NLP-based systems in clinical practice and the advantages and benefits they offer for both psychologists and patients. Findings suggest that NLP-driven AI systems enhance both patient engagement and clinician efficiency, offering scalable, cost-effective solutions that improve access and personalization. However, challenges remain, including ethical concerns around data privacy, lack of standardization, limited generalizability across disorders and reduced human empathy. Moreover, current systems are primarily designed for well-defined conditions like anxiety and depression, with limited applicability to complex or comorbid psychological presentations. This review underscores the importance of supervised, ethically governed AI implementation. While AI holds substantial promise in augmenting clinical psychology, its success depends on maintaining human oversight, ensuring transparency and establishing shared scientific and ethical standards across the psychological community.
Summary
- Through the systematic review of the existing literature regarding the use of AI in clinical psychology, practitioners could know how AI and NLP systems are (re)shaping psychological interventions to improve them for digital mental health (DMH).
- The study describes characteristics, features and tasks of AI systems in clinical psychology, the main techniques currently adopted, from which practitioners can find information to choose the best tools for their work objectives, adapting to specific individual psychological needs.
- Practitioners could evaluate AI systems' impact on DMH promotion: beneficial effects of AI systems for patients' mental health and related challenges. Indeed, while on one hand the implementation of AI in clinical psychology has demonstrated significant improvements in psychological well-being, on the other hand some studies have reported less conclusive findings.
