Using WorkBuddy to Organize AI Therapy Logs: I Only Trust It as a 'Scribe'

Last night I scrolled past an article in CommonWealth Magazine discussing whether AI can replace psychological counseling. One point stung: more and more people are pouring their hearts out to ChatGPT late at night, and emotional companionship is even ranking high among generative AI use cases.

My first reaction wasn't excitement, but sleepiness. But while getting sleepy, I thought of a case last week who told me he typed all his anxiety to AI at 3 AM, then came to see me the next day. I understand his feelings, and I understand him. But when it comes to writing supervision records asking "Did this AI dialogue affect the counseling process?", I dare not simply copy-paste.

I previously wrote about automating supervision minutes with WorkBuddy, but later found it was too good at comforting people, like stealing the counselor's chair. For a while, I avoided touching WorkBuddy for days. As a psychological counselor, I diagnosed myself, conclusion: hopeless. Only later did I realize it wasn't that it couldn't organize, but that I placed its role incorrectly.

This time I used it to archive "AI Heart-to-Heart / Emotional Support Records." Not to let it empathize, but to act as a scribe. My environment might not suit everyone, but beginners can follow along.

Connect WorkBuddy to Fixed Inputs First

Open WorkBuddy, click 'Files' on the left, create a new workspace, named AI Heart-to-Heart Records_Unarchived. Then dump weekly Tencent Meeting transcripts, PDF supervision records, and AI dialogue screenshots pasted by cases into it uniformly.

Here's a small pitfall: I habitually use PDFs and screenshots. WorkBuddy's 'File Organization' can recognize them, but merging screenshots into tables sometimes errors out. Later, I went to 'Settings' → 'Display' → scaled DPI to 100%, then exported to PDF, which stabilized things.

Then go back to 'Automation', click 'New Flow', select 'When folder has files' as trigger. This step means it starts running when you put new files in that folder. Select the folder just created as the input source. I tried scheduled runs, but found that while scheduled tasks seemed to execute, emails never arrived, likely due to hardcoded paths. Switching to folder triggers reduced a lot of mysticism.

Make WorkBuddy Only Fill Forms, Not Express Emotions

Add a 'Document Parsing' node first in the flow. This node's function is to extract text from Word, PDF, and meeting transcripts; don't let it summarize. After parsing, add a 'Structured Extraction' node, meaning let it fixedly extract a few fields from a pile of words: Date, Source, Original Quote Excerpt, Emotional Intensity, Crisis Involvement, Items Requiring Manual Confirmation.

The key prompt I wrote very strictly: You are just a record organization tool. Do not comfort, do not diagnose, do not judge the visitor's motivation. Output according to template only. All unverifiable content fills in "Pending Manual Confirmation." Do not generate phrases like "I understand your feelings."

Select 'Generate Table' for the output node, format XLSX, simultaneously export Markdown to the Archived folder. I kept these table fields: ID, Date, Source, Original Excerpt, Risk Flag, Supervision Opinion, Status. Status defaults to Pending Confirmation.

Permissions need setting here too. Click 'Collaboration' in the top right → 'Member Permissions' → set supervisor account to read-only, assistant to editable, and raw folder to admin-access-only. Tables generated by WorkBuddy can only view summaries, not directly modify original records. Enable 'Watermark' and 'Operation Log' upon export. This is crucial in professional records. I previously worried about AI over-empathizing and silent errors, so anything entering archives must leave a trace.

Daily maintenance is also set stupidly simple. Before leaving work every Friday, click 'Run Records' → 'Failed Tasks' to check for empty parsed fields. Spot-check ten rows monthly to see if Original Excerpt has been rewritten. If WorkBuddy suddenly changes "He said he's a bit annoyed" to "He is experiencing emotional distress," I will immediately roll back the template.

After using it this time, I feel WorkBuddy shouldn't replace psychologists, nor should it replace visitors themselves. What it can do is organize scattered information from AI heart-to-hearts into auditable leads. Judgment and feelings remain with humans.

If you want to try, suggest running non-sensitive cases first: Let it only do four fields: "Date, Source, Original Quote Excerpt, Risk Flag," output a table, enter formal archives only after manual confirmation. Don't ask it to write supervision opinions right away. I'm sleepy, but this at least saved me half an hour of copying tomorrow.