Chatbots Struggle to Offer What Therapists Do: Comparison between Therapeutic Interventions of Therapists and LLM-Based Chatbots

Therapists and LLM-based chatbots both reacted to standardized vignettes of mental health conversations with users. Both provided affirming responses. However, therapists asked for more elaboration from users, while chatbots provided directive advice. Chatbots also provided more psychoeducation to enhance their advice. Notably, chatbots also failed to respond to suicide risk.