When Clients Stop Following: A Cognitive Conceptualization Diagram-driven Framework for Strategic Counseling

Y Qin, J Zhao, C Ma, Y Tao, M Yang, C Liu… - arXiv preprint arXiv …, 2026 - arxiv.org
Y Qin, J Zhao, C Ma, Y Tao, M Yang, C Liu, B Hu
arXiv preprint arXiv:2606.04389, 2026arxiv.org
Large Language Models (LLMs) show promise in psychological counseling, yet existing
benchmarks rely heavily on highly cooperative simulated clients. We observe a critical
counselor-following phenomenon: these clients often rapidly shift from resistance to
compliance after only a few turns, creating an illusion of therapeutic progress and inflating
scores under current evaluation protocols through superficial empathy. To address this
evaluation mismatch, we propose a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)-grounded …
Large Language Models (LLMs) show promise in psychological counseling, yet existing benchmarks rely heavily on highly cooperative simulated clients. We observe a critical counselor-following phenomenon: these clients often rapidly shift from resistance to compliance after only a few turns, creating an illusion of therapeutic progress and inflating scores under current evaluation protocols through superficial empathy. To address this evaluation mismatch, we propose a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)-grounded resistance-aware framework. We introduce CARS, a client simulator that explicitly models dynamic resistance via Cognitive Conceptualization Diagrams (CCDs). We present STREAMS, a dual-module framework that decouples strategic reasoning (Thinker) from response generation (Presenter) and optimizes it via reinforcement learning. We further propose EWTS-MI, an entropy-weighted metric for evaluating responsiveness under high-friction interactions. Experiments across resistant and non-resistant counseling settings validate our findings on evaluation mismatch and demonstrate the effectiveness of resistance-aware training for improving strategic robustness under challenging counseling interactions.
arxiv.org