76. How to Start Supporting Clients Through AI Job Loss

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How to Start Supporting Clients Through AI Job Loss

Supporting clients through AI job loss is becoming an essential part of private practice as more people worry about how AI is changing their careers. In this episode of Run Your Private Practice with AI, I talk about the real fears clients are bringing into the therapy room and how we can hold space for these shifts with compassion and practical tools. You will learn how to talk about AI in a grounded way and help clients navigate uncertainty without feeling overwhelmed yourself.

AI Tips You Don’t Want to Miss:

  • How to help clients process fear and grief around job loss due to AI.
  • Ways to stay informed about AI without adding stress to your workload.
  • A simple approach for exploring a client’s personal strengths and future goals.
  • Why therapists do not need to become AI experts to support clients well.
  • How to use your own creativity to guide clients through career transitions.

Mentioned in this episode:

Connect with me:

Sponsored by Alma: www.helloalma.com/kym
Sponsored by Berries: www.heyberries.com/therapists

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Hi, you guys. Hope you’re having a great week. Somebody asked me the other day, they were like, how can you support AI when it’s basically taking our jobs and our client’s jobs? And you know, I’m hearing a lot about this.

[00:00:10] I don’t know if you guys are, but for example, Amazon announced cutting around 14,000 corporate jobs. 4% of its corporate workforce, this was last week, well, in October they announced it, but in October this happened. It ramps up in investments of AI while restructuring. So they’re using AI to like be the Amazon warehouse pickers and they’re laying off a lot of people.

[00:00:32] Salesforce laid off 262 employees in San Francisco in November. Roles across technology, product administration, sales, and then its CEO publicly later credited AI with reducing the need for human customer support staff. Tata Consultancy Services announced cutting 12,261 jobs in 2025 of its workforce amid disruption in IT services.

[00:00:59] And as automation AI shifts their business model. So this is a real thing that’s happening. Our clients are losing their jobs, therapists are losing their jobs. Clients are going to ChatGPT for therapy. This is a real thing that’s happening. So, you know, this person asked me in one of my other groups was like, how can you support ai?

[00:01:21] And I’m like, it’s not really that I’m supporting it. It’s like I’m literally facing the reality of what is happening in our world there, in my opinion, there’s not anything we we can do about it, you know? So, the people that are out there saying, well, I’m just never gonna use ai. it’s not really realistic ’cause AI is built into literally everything we do. Like even on my computer i’ve got Grammarly in the bottom right, that’s ai.

[00:01:44] You know, trying to book a trip, anything you’re trying to do aI is working in the background. EHRs, AI is working in the background to like, cultivate all this information to make it easier for us to function.

[00:01:55] So it’s literally everywhere. And it’s inevitable that these companies, insurance companies, for therapists Amazon, all these companies, it’s inevitable that they’re gonna wanna save money, right? So what do we do about it? That’s the big question.

[00:02:08] My perspective is, and always has been, we have to embrace it. It’s here, it’s happening. We can either like put our head in the sand and not participate in the AI culture, but it’s still gonna happen anyway regardless of what we do. I’ve always been an innovator, so I fully believe in like thinking outside the box and how can we innovate to stay relevant in this field.

[00:02:29] So, of course you guys know me, I’ve been thinking about this. So we’re seeing all these AI related layoffs, like I was saying, it’s happening, it’s real. People are losing their jobs. And companies are basically their automating task at a rate that nobody predicted.

[00:02:44] Like even my boyfriend, he’s not here right now, but he will say, AI is so stupid, it’s never gonna be able to replace jobs. I don’t agree with that. I am in it every day. I am, messing with it every day. I am seeing every day it’s doing like new, innovative things, just even in my business. It’s happening fast and it’s gonna continue to just grow exponentially in my opinion.

[00:03:03] And, you know, and replace a ton of skill sets that a lot of us, a lot of workers do out there to make a living. Again, entire departments are shrinking because AI handles the admin, the content, the data entry, the coding support, and the customer service. AI is taking over a lot of that stuff, and your clients may not be saying it directly, but many are scared. What if my job disappears next?

[00:03:26] This is a real thing and I wanted to talk about that too, because our clients are gonna be coming into the office. And talking about this, maybe they’re getting laid off. You know, somebody said in the other group, she’s like, I’m already seeing clients losing their jobs because of ai.

[00:03:39] I’m not gonna support ai. And I’m like, okay, So what are we gonna sit in our therapy sessions and like commiserate with our clients? Or what are we gonna do? We’re gonna help them cope and adapt to this new world. Right? Just like we have to.

[00:03:51] this is not like a trend that’s gonna go away. This is only going to get worse. So we gotta figure out how to adapt and live with it. For therapists, right? We’re scared and, you know, in a lot of ways we should be. I just read, Cigna just released something that they’re bringing, introducing these chat bots and they’re gonna handle like psychoeducation and that sort of thing, right?

[00:04:11] I just met with, if you guys know Lisa Mustard, she has the Therapy Show podcast. I did a podcast episode with her. We were talking about this exact same topic on Tuesday that we are going to be replaced in a lot of ways. Cigna is replacing us with chatbots to do psychoeducation. They are making chatbots, frontline.

[00:04:27] They want to reduce costs. It’s gonna happen. So what do we do as therapists about losing our jobs? Right? Here’s the thoughts right now. AI’s not gonna replace emotional attunement, nuances, ethics, and relational depth of what we’re doing with our clients. I was talking to Lisa about this.

[00:04:42] the rapport we build, being able to pick up on psychological nuances, working with couples, working in groups, working in relational dynamics, that AI is not, for a long time, I don’t think gonna be smart enough to be able to say, well, gosh, this husband said this with this tone and she picked up on this tone and she felt this way.

[00:05:01] Like, AI’s not gonna be able to do that. So the better we can get at, therapeutic models that need that type of work, the better off we’re gonna be. Intensives, you know, where we’re doing all different types of modalities, like maybe some somatic where get up, shake your body out. Being able to notice like how somebody’s holding tension in their body.

[00:05:17] AI is not gonna be great at that, in my opinion, yet. I mean, it could get better. There’s all kinds of, like these AI wearables now that can detect body, body changes, temperature changes, blood pressure changes, and make like sort of predictions about how you’re feeling or how your emotions are. And who knows, that might get better.

[00:05:35] But for right now, I feel like as therapists, we need to be focusing on that stuff. And, and if we shut our eyes to it, if we’re not paying attention to this stuff, our, we’re not gonna be able to help our clients with it either, is my opinion about that.

[00:05:46] So, how it’s affecting our clients, right? Because, you know, the person that was coming to me did have commenting to me, did have valid opinions about this. I totally agree. It’s concerning, but again, I can’t just put my head in the sand and pretend like it’s not happening. this is how I feel like we’re gonna see it hitting clients.

[00:06:02] Job losses are gonna hit self-worth identity. The routines that people are used to financial security relationships, these are all areas that we could help them learn how to cope better if AI’s like replacing them or they’re getting fired because of ai they might come in asking questions like, what’s wrong with me?

[00:06:21] When the real issue is not something’s wrong with them. It’s a changing economy. It’s technology. It’s the advancement of the world. This happens. And then we can normalize. right?

[00:06:31] If we can’t beat it, work with it. Right? Create custom gpt, I just posted about this in the run your private practice with ai, Facebook group, create custom gpt that are gonna make your life easier. They’re gonna help you create digital products, so you don’t have to be stuck in that one-to-one model all the time. Like, use this for your advantage right now.

[00:06:48] Figure out how to innovate and be ahead of the curb and not like. You know, a therapist is like, I’m never gonna touch ai. And, and the rest of the world’s moved on and you’re just like, not moving on. it’s happening. So back to, for our clients, right? They’re gonna be asking questions like, what’s wrong with me?

[00:07:04] Am am I not good enough? These kind of like self-esteem things are gonna, we’re gonna be seeing this come up with our clients so we can already predict. Ways that we can help them cope with this stuff. We can normalize the fear and help them shift from like being collapsed and not moving forward to create a problem solving.

[00:07:21] This goes for us too. This is an opportunity then help them build resilience instead of panic. So what can we do about it? Right? We can give coping skills all day long, but it’s still at the bottom. At the end of the day, it’s like I still don’t have a job and my job’s become obsolete for therapists, maybe for our clients as well.

[00:07:38] So here’s some things we can do to help support our clients is what I’ve been thinking. If you’re listening to this or if you think of some other ideas, let me know too. I wanna hear ’em. Help them explore new skill sets without shame, your career isn’t ending. It’s evolving, right?

[00:07:52] Support them identifying strengths that translate into new rules. pull up ChatGPT and be like, what are your skills and what are your strengths? And how can we adapt these to work in the new world with ai? You know, I was once a picker in the Amazon warehouse. What can I do now to use that set of skills to adapt to the ever-changing world of ai?

[00:08:13] it is gonna give you a thousand ideas in ways you can do that. You can build a treatment plan around it. You can help your client like innovate and reinvent themselves if that’s what they need to do. Maybe it’s going back to school. Maybe it’s learning coding, maybe it’s learning how to become a prompt engineer.

[00:08:28] There’s all kinds of ways to, use this to your advantage. If you can think outside of the box and be creative with your clients and with ourselves. Teach them how to adapt to a world that’s changing every quarter, not every decade, right? So, I mean, this is happening so fast. We have to be adaptable.

[00:08:44] We have to teach adaptability. We have to um Teach innovation and how to, evolve with what’s happening and it’s happening so quickly, you know, how to stay on top of the trends, that sort of thing. We can teach all of that stuff and we can do it ourselves.

[00:08:57] Encourage experimenting with ai, getting in and saying like, I just did simple assignment. Do some prompts to see how your skillset can adapt to the modern AI world. Encourage upskilling, networking, curiosity around how they can get outside of the box, help them separate these, the thought processes around like, I’m a failure because, you know, my industry’s obsolete to the job market is shifting.

[00:09:23] How can I change? I mean, this, this has happened centuries after centuries after centuries, right? I mean, innovations come in and people have to learn how to adapt. People used to plow fields. Game machinery, like you have to learn how to operate the machinery. That’s just what happens in the world with technology and that’s what’s happening right now. We just gotta figure out a different way to adapt to it.

[00:09:43] Key points in my mind. We can’t help clients adapt if we refuse to adapt ourselves, right? If we’re gonna sit in a session with our client that just lost it job to AI and be like, yeah, we can’t use ai, that’s not gonna be helpful, in my opinion.

[00:09:57] I just don’t think that mindset is helpful at all for like the modern world. That’s just me. Somebody else might hear that. Totally disagree with me.

[00:10:04] Using AI doesn’t make your work less human. It gives you more bandwidth to be human. A lot of people say, if I’m using ai, I’m gonna lose my clinical skills. No, you’re not. I feel like if you’re not using ai, you’re gonna totally burn out and not have any bandwidth to do anything.

[00:10:19] AI just makes your life like a thousand times easier. If I can go into my social media. GPT that I built out and say, gimme a post idea for today and it spits out 15 ideas. And I’m like, that one’s cute. I grab it, go put it on my social media, it’s done. I don’t have to think about it. I don’t have to be like, gosh, I’m not marketing myself well enough.

[00:10:36] I don’t even know how to use Instagram. I can’t think of anything that burns you out. If you’ve got a GPT that does it for you already, just go use that instead. And that goes for all of these things in our businesses that we’re trying to do, all the hats that we’re wearing.

[00:10:49] When we understand the tools that are shaping our client’s world, we can guide them with clarity, not fear, right? So we’re talking about custom gpt right now. It’s. Very helpful to be able to tell your client, go build a custom GPT to help you look at your skill sets and identify deficiencies to help you be more modern in this AI world.

[00:11:09] You could literally build a GPT for that, that’s gonna help somebody learn how to do that and, and be able to just go consult it whenever they’re having issues or job searching or, you know, they’re like, God, I’m not qualified for that. How do I spend this? Or how do I give myself the AI skills to be qualified for this job that’s being advertised right now?

[00:11:27] You can make a GPT for that and it’ll help you. It’ll already know you, it’ll know your skillset and then it’ll give you ideas. You can go back and forth with that. You could practice interviewing with somebody. You could say, Hey, look, this is the, the job recs generated 30 questions that the interviewer might ask me, and let’s do a role play back and forth on voice. You could do it on voice in the chat GPT app, so you can teach your clients all of this stuff to help them adapt and. Be up to date in the modern world.

[00:11:52] So anyway, that’s my soapbox. This all started ’cause somebody posted in one of my other groups and was basically like, you’re a terrible person. How can you keep promoting the use of AI in the therapy world?

[00:12:02] And I’m just like, I’m not, it’s actually the reality and we need to know how to do this stuff, in my opinion. So I wanted to come in here and just give you guys like just a little synopsis about that, what our clients are going through, that layoffs are real. we are being outsourced to chatbots. We have to adapt and so our clients, so these are some ideas and some ways to be able to do that.

[00:12:23] Okay. I hope that’s not too depressing. It’s meant to be like inspirational and like a reality check, really. So anyway, I hope you guys have a great weekend. I’ll see you next week. I’ll be back here every week. Just kind of like giving my 2 cents about ai. And if you have any thoughts, questions, concerns, anything about what I said here today, I’d love to hear it down in the comments. Okay, see you guys later.