Summit programme

Full schedule: Monday, 5 October 2026 (all times UK)

• 09:30–09:55: Introduction with Dr Aisha Tariq, Illuminated Thinking & Dr Esther Cole, Lifespan Psychology. Aisha Tariq and Esther Cole open the summit. Why a day on AI in psychology, why now, and what they hope the profession does with it. More than one in three UK adults say they have used an AI chatbot to support their mental health or wellbeing. Our clients are already having those conversations between sessions, often without telling us, and the questions that raises about safeguarding, ethics, bias and therapeutic work itself will not wait. A short orientation to the day follows: how the programme runs, and where the threads picked up during the morning come back together in the closing panel.
• 09:55–10:45: The Client in the AI Conversation: What Therapists Need to See with Winnie Akadjo, Aeli Health. More people than ever are turning to AI chatbots for emotional support. Not instead of therapy, but alongside it, between sessions, and often without their therapist's knowledge. For practitioners this creates a new and largely invisible dynamic. An AI has been part of your client's week, and you have no visibility into what it said. Winnie introduces the Intelligence Bridge Framework, a three-step model for practitioners. Understand the AI landscape and how clients are actually using it. Govern that use against WHO, NICE, BPS and BACP standards. Implement AI tools in practice without compromising the therapeutic relationship. The session draws on real clinical scenarios and current research, including Hewitt et al.'s 2024 silicon samples study, and comes with a resource pack of consent template language, intake questions and a glossary of AI terms for practitioners.. What you'll take away: Ask structured questions at intake to assess how and why clients are using AI between sessions; Apply the WHO, NICE, BPS and BACP ethical frameworks to your own clinical context; Introduce AI notetaker tools safely, with appropriate consent and data governance; Use the Intelligence Bridge Framework to keep therapeutic leadership when clients are also using AI; Identify the 10 key risks of AI in mental health care, and proportionate steps to mitigate them
• 10:45–10:55: Break
• 10:55–11:45: AI Tools for Neurodivergent People: Friends or Foes? with Jo Desborough, Unblocked Thinking Ltd. A brief recap of the research, the politics and the societal understanding of neurodivergence, and how all three shape the way professionals, neurodivergent people and those supporting them think about strategy. Then the harder questions. Can we make space to find our own understanding of ourselves, and let that healthily inform the strategies we use? When is AI genuinely helpful? When might it be harmful? And how do we develop the wisdom to know the difference, and become wise consumers of AI tools? Jo brings lived experience as an autistic professional, and an MEd in Adult Autism, to the question.. What you'll take away: Consider the ethical use of AI in the context of client authenticity; Outsource to AI without feeling lesser for it; Use AI wisely and with caution, without becoming deskilled
• 11:45–12:35: AI in Psychology: The UK Legal and Regulatory Landscape with Clare Veal, Aubergine Legal. There is no AI-specific legislation in the UK, so what is and is not permitted has to be worked out from UK GDPR and the guidance regulators have published so far. Clare is a solicitor who advises psychologists on these questions, and this session sets out the legal and regulatory landscape as it currently stands. It covers what UK GDPR asks of a practice once AI tools touch clinical work, the ICO's current position, and where the professional bodies have landed, including the joint regulator statement and the BPS's reference to the Global Psychology Alliance principles. AI note-takers get particular attention: the questions worth asking before adopting a tool, consent, where data is stored and whether it leaves the UK, and when a data protection impact assessment is needed.. What you'll take away: Understand what UK GDPR asks of you when AI tools touch clinical work, in the absence of AI-specific legislation; Know the ICO's current position on AI and data protection; Understand where the HCPC and BPS stand, including the joint regulator statement and the Global Psychology Alliance principles; Know the questions worth asking before adopting an AI note-taker, from consent to where data is stored; Recognise when a data protection impact assessment is needed
• 12:35–13:10: Lunch
• 13:10–14:00: AI in Daily Clinical Practice: Beyond Note-Taking with Dr Natalie Stott, Mastering Therapy. AI in therapy is often reduced to note-taking, but its potential is much broader. This session looks at how therapists can use AI to support clinical reflection, audit their own work, make sense of routine outcome measures and streamline day-to-day practice. It is pitched for both ends of the room: those already fluent with these tools, and those thinking about them properly for the first time. Natalie offers practical, clinically grounded ways to use AI without outsourcing professional judgement. Clear steps you can start using the same day, in a way that supports clinicians and clients alike.. What you'll take away: Streamline your practice and make it meaningfully more efficient; Understand why a practice cannot be future-proofed without engaging with AI; Feel more confident educating clients on how to use these tools properly
• 14:00–14:50: AI, Cultural Bias and Health Inequalities with Dr Rima Lamba, Blue River Psychology. Drawing on the book she is writing about the intersection of womanhood, physical illness, race, culture and mental health, Rima examines the part AI will play in health, diagnosis and treatment, particularly for women's bodies and for bodies that have been racialised as minorities. AI offers real gains in healthcare, not least for rare diseases, which affect 300 to 400 million people globally and usually bring a long diagnostic odyssey that AI is hoped to shorten. It is also fraught with bias and inequity, and when it comes to the body and health we are in the territory of life or death. A lecture and discussion on paying attention to a technological revolution that will shape medical care for everyone.. What you'll take away: Learn about the role of AI in physical health, especially rare disease and its diagnostic odyssey; Understand why the way AI is used needs careful thought, when it is built on data that is often missing or biased; Recognise how those biases disproportionately affect women and people of the global majority, where research already shows disparity and health inequity
• 14:50–15:00: Break
• 15:00–15:50: Can AI Help Us Be Better Therapists? A Reflective Close with Dr Naomi Murphy, Octopus Psychology. As artificial intelligence becomes woven into therapeutic practice, it offers more than new tools. It offers a mirror. This session explores how AI systems, precisely because they lack lived experience, embodiment and emotion, can sharpen a therapist's understanding of what it means to be human. Setting algorithmic pattern recognition against the richness of human subjectivity, Naomi argues that AI can illuminate the tacit skills therapists rely on: empathy, attunement, narrative meaning-making and the capacity to hold ambiguity. Drawing on emerging research and case examples, the session frames AI not as a replacement for human connection, but as a catalyst for reflective practice and a partner in rediscovering the essence of therapeutic humanity.. What you'll take away: Appreciate the challenges AI poses to psychologists and therapists in independent practice; Identify how AI can inhibit psychological growth; Understand how a focus on embodied learning can enrich psychological therapy; Recognise areas for skills development and innovation for psychological therapists; Identify opportunities for partnership working with AI
• 15:50–16:30: Panel Discussion. Our speakers reconvene for a closing panel to discuss the day's themes and answer your questions.