Consistent Client Simulation for Motivational Interviewing-based Counseling (2025.acl-long)
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Yizhe Yang, Palakorn Achananuparp, Heyan Huang, Jing Jiang, Nicholas Gabriel Lim, Cameron Tan Shi Ern, Phey Ling Kit, Jenny Giam Xiuhui, John Pinto, Ee-Peng Lim
| Challenge: | Existing approaches to simulate human clients in mental health counseling are limited and cost prohibitive. |
| Approach: | They propose a framework that supports consistent client simulation for mental health counseling by tracking the mental state of a simulated client, controlling its state transitions, and generating for each state behaviors consistent with the client’s motivation, beliefs, preferred plan to change, and and receptivity. |
| Outcome: | The proposed framework can simulate human clients for mental health counseling tasks and achieve higher consistency than previous methods. |
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