Counsel clients or patients regarding personal issues
Part of the output can be produced by software today.
Software drafts well and sends at volume, and vertical support agents now resolve a large share of inbound questions end to end. What does not transfer is the relationship, and the judgment about when a message should not be sent at all.
| How automatable | Partly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Routine communication and explanation |
| Jobs that do it | 9 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Vertical agents, Builders |
| O*NET activity | Providing Consultation and Advice to Others (4.A.4.b.6) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 9 occupations that perform it.
- Counsel individuals or groups to help them understand and overcome personal, social, or behavioral problems affecting their educational or vocational situations.
- Ask questions that will help clients identify their feelings and behaviors.
- Encourage clients to express their feelings and discuss what is happening in their lives, helping them to develop insight into themselves or their relationships.
- Lead group counseling sessions that provide support in such areas as grief, stress, or chemical dependency.
- Educate clients about end-of-life symptoms and options to assist them in making informed decisions.
- Counsel clients in individual or group sessions to assist them in dealing with substance abuse, mental or physical illness, poverty, unemployment, or physical abuse.
- Instruct people who seek conversion to a particular faith.
- Counsel individuals regarding interpersonal, health, financial, or religious problems.
- Provide clinical services to clients, such as assessing psychological problems and conducting psychotherapy.
- Discuss with individual patients their plans for life after leaving therapy.
- Counsel individuals or groups concerning their spiritual, emotional, or personal needs.
What we would actually use
One recommendation rather than a shortlist, because a shortlist is just your problem handed back. This is what we would buy for routine communication and explanation, and what it costs.
Drafting replies costs nothing beyond the assistant you already pay for. Only move to a support agent billed per resolution once the inbound volume is large enough that the per-resolution price beats the hour it takes you.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
9 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Child, Family, and School Social Workers
- Clergy
- Directors, Religious Activities and Education
- Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselors and Advisors
- Healthcare Social Workers
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Workers
- Mental Health Counselors
- Psychology Teachers, Postsecondary
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Counsel others about personal matters”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.