Client101 Conversation Assistant

Psychology students need hours of practice to build confidence and competence, but real clients, trained actors and supervisors are limited resources. Enter Client101, an innovative AI-powered "practice client" developed at the University of Melbourne to help train the next generation of psychologists. Built using advanced natural language processing, Client101 can simulate diverse mental health presentations, allowing students to rehearse core therapeutic skills, test interventions and respond to challenging scenarios in a safe, flexible and repeatable environment.

Early trials show strong promise: students describe Client101 as a valuable supplement to traditional role-plays, offering opportunities to practice foundational skills before working with real clients. The system is also being formally embedded into postgraduate psychology subjects, helping standardise assessment, increase equity across placements and enhance students’ ability to critically evaluate their own practice using chatbot-generated transcripts. Importantly, Client101 is not designed to replace human connection. It expands access to high-quality training while keeping expert supervision firmly in the loop. As demand for mental health services continues to grow, the project is paving the way for thoughtful, ethical and scalable uses of AI in professional education.

Support

• Using conversational agents and natural language processing to train and evaluate psychologists
• Client101: Embedding a psychotherapy training chatbot platform into University of Melbourne psychology curricula

Team

• Dr Simon D'Alfonso
• Dr Chelsea Hyde
• Dr Simone Schmidt

Contact: Dr Simon D'Alfonso: <dalfonso@unimelb.edu.au>

Outputs

• 2025 Australian Psychology Learning and Teaching (AusPLAT) conference presentation: Embedding a psychotherapy training chatbot into intervention curriculum: Client 101
• Schmidt S, Cabrera Lozoya D, Kiropoulos L, Conway M, D'Alfonso S. Psychology student and mental health practitioner experiences of and perspectives on Client101, a virtual client chatbot training tool. BMC Med Educ. 2025 Oct 2;25(1):1293. doi: 10.1186/s12909-025-07668-9. PMID: 41039348; PMCID: PMC12492891
• Cabrera Lozoya D, Conway M, Sebastiano De Duro E, D'Alfonso S. Leveraging Large Language Models for Simulated Psychotherapy Client Interactions: Development and Usability Study of Client101. JMIR Med Educ 2025;11:e68056. DOI: 10.2196/68056