Related papers: Scaffolding Empathy: Training Counselors with Simu…
Simulating human clients in mental health counseling is crucial for training and evaluating counselors (both human or simulated) in a scalable manner. Nevertheless, past research on client simulation did not focus on complex conversation…
The growing demand for accessible mental health support requires training more counselors, yet existing approaches remain resource-intensive and difficult to scale. LLMs can realistically simulate patients and generate actionable feedback…
Empathetic response from the therapist is key to the success of clinical psychotherapy, especially motivational interviewing. Previous work on computational modelling of empathy in motivational interviewing has focused on offline,…
Creating effective dialogue systems for mental health support requires high-quality multi-turn counseling dialogue data, yet collecting real counselor-client conversations presents significant challenges, including privacy concerns, high…
Large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated notable advancements in psychological counseling. However, existing models generally do not explicitly model seekers' emotion shifts across counseling sessions, a core focus in classical…
We introduce a novel application of large language models (LLMs) in developing a virtual counselor capable of conducting motivational interviewing (MI) for alcohol use counseling. Access to effective counseling remains limited, particularly…
Large language models (LLMs) have been widely applied in various fields due to their excellent capability for memorizing knowledge and chain of thought (CoT). When these language models are applied in the field of psychological counseling,…
Young people's mental well-being is a global concern, with peer support playing a key role in daily emotional regulation. Conversational agents are increasingly viewed as promising tools for delivering accessible, personalised peer support,…
Cognitive empathy, the ability to understand others' perspectives, is essential for effective communication, reducing biases, and constructive negotiation. However, this skill is declining in a performance-driven society, which prioritizes…
Many laypeople are motivated to improve the health behavior of their family or friends but do not know where to start, especially if the health behavior is potentially stigmatizing or controversial. We present an approach that uses virtual…
Psychotherapy is a primary treatment for many mental health conditions, yet the interplay among therapist behaviors, client responses, and the therapeutic relationship remains difficult to untangle. This work advances a computational…
Couples therapy requires managing complex, evolving emotional dynamics between partners, but traditional training methods for therapists, like role-play, lack realism, consistency, and control. We present a multi-modal simulation that…
Large language models (LLMs) enable increasingly capable tutoring-style conversational agents, yet effective tutoring requires sensitivity to learners' affective and cognitive states beyond text alone. Facial expressions provide immediate…
Job interviews play a critical role in shaping one's career, yet practicing interview skills can be challenging, especially without access to human coaches or peers for feedback. Recent advancements in large language models (LLMs) present…
Social robots hold promise for reducing job interview anxiety, yet designing agents that provide both psychological safety and instructional guidance remains challenging. Through a three-phase iterative design study (N = 8), we empirically…
Job interview anxiety is a prevalent challenge among university students and can undermine both performance and confidence in high-stakes evaluative situations. Social robots have shown promise in reducing anxiety through emotional support,…
Empathy is central to human connection, yet people often struggle to express it effectively. In blinded evaluations, large language models (LLMs) generate responses that are often judged more empathic than human-written ones. Yet when a…
The advent of large language models (LLMs) has significantly advanced various fields, including natural language processing and automated dialogue systems. This paper explores the application of LLMs in psychological counseling, addressing…
Mental health challenges are rising globally, while traditional support services face limited availability and high costs. Large language models offer potential for conversational support, but often lack personalization, empathy, and…
LLM-based client simulation has emerged as a promising tool for training novice counselors and evaluating automated counseling systems. However, existing client simulation approaches face three key challenges: (1) limited diversity and…