HealMe: Harnessing Cognitive Reframing in Large Language Models for Psychotherapy

TL;DR

HealMe is a novel LLM-based psychotherapy tool that uses empathetic dialogue and psychotherapeutic frameworks to improve cognitive reframing, addressing deep-rooted negative thoughts and fostering balanced perspectives.

Contribution

This paper introduces HealMe, a new LLM model employing psychotherapeutic strategies and comprehensive evaluation metrics for effective cognitive reframing in psychotherapy.

Findings

HealMe outperforms existing models in empathy and guidance.

It effectively addresses deep-rooted negative thoughts.

Demonstrates positive impact in real-world therapy settings.

Abstract

Large Language Models (LLMs) can play a vital role in psychotherapy by adeptly handling the crucial task of cognitive reframing and overcoming challenges such as shame, distrust, therapist skill variability, and resource scarcity. Previous LLMs in cognitive reframing mainly converted negative emotions to positive ones, but these approaches have limited efficacy, often not promoting clients' self-discovery of alternative perspectives. In this paper, we unveil the Helping and Empowering through Adaptive Language in Mental Enhancement (HealMe) model. This novel cognitive reframing therapy method effectively addresses deep-rooted negative thoughts and fosters rational, balanced perspectives. Diverging from traditional LLM methods, HealMe employs empathetic dialogue based on psychotherapeutic frameworks. It systematically guides clients through distinguishing circumstances from feelings, brainstorming alternative viewpoints, and developing empathetic, actionable suggestions. Moreover, we adopt the first comprehensive and expertly crafted psychological evaluation metrics, specifically designed to rigorously assess the performance of cognitive reframing, in both AI-simulated dialogues and real-world therapeutic conversations. Experimental results show that our model outperforms others in terms of empathy, guidance, and logical coherence, demonstrating its effectiveness and potential positive impact on psychotherapy.