# Modeling Motivational Interviewing Strategies On An Online Peer-to-Peer Counseling Platform

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.05182 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.05182/

## Key facts

- Cited by 20 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 9 of its 62 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 9 Nov 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 9 of 9)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.04805/) (2018)
- [RoBERTa: A Robustly Optimized BERT Pretraining Approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.11692/) (2019)
- [HuggingFace's Transformers: State-of-the-art Natural Language Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.03771/) (2019)
- [BERTweet: A pre-trained language model for English Tweets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.10200/) (2020)
- [HateBERT: Retraining BERT for Abusive Language Detection in English](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.12472/) (2020)
- [Practical Text Classification With Large Pre-Trained Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.01207/) (2018)
- [Automated Evaluation Of Psychotherapy Skills Using Speech And Language Technologies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.11265/) (2021)
- [Bursts of Activity: Temporal Patterns of Help-Seeking and Support in Online Mental Health Forums](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.10330/) (2020)

## Built on by (most cited first, 20 of 20)

- [Can Large Language Models Transform Computational Social Science?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.03514/) (2023)
- [Cognitive Reframing of Negative Thoughts through Human-Language Model Interaction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.02466/) (2023)
- [Facilitating Self-Guided Mental Health Interventions Through Human-Language Model Interaction: A Case Study of Cognitive Restructuring](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.15461/) (2023)
- [Helping the Helper: Supporting Peer Counselors via AI-Empowered Practice and Feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.08982/) (2023)
- [Multi-Level Feedback Generation with Large Language Models for Empowering Novice Peer Counselors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.15482/) (2024)
- [Building Trustworthy NeuroSymbolic AI Systems: Consistency, Reliability, Explainability, and Safety](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.06798/) (2023)
- [IMBUE: Improving Interpersonal Effectiveness through Simulation and Just-in-time Feedback with Human-Language Model Interaction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.12556/) (2024)
- [Few-shot Dialogue Strategy Learning for Motivational Interviewing via Inductive Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.15737/) (2024)
- [CAMI: A Counselor Agent Supporting Motivational Interviewing through State Inference and Topic Exploration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.02807/) (2025)
- [Script-Strategy Aligned Generation: Aligning LLMs with Expert-Crafted Dialogue Scripts and Therapeutic Strategies for Psychotherapy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.06723/) (2024)
- [From Conversation to Automation: Leveraging LLMs for Problem-Solving Therapy Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.06101/) (2025)
- [TN-Eval: Rubric and Evaluation Protocols for Measuring the Quality of Behavioral Therapy Notes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.20648/) (2025)
- [What's Mine becomes Yours: Defining, Annotating and Detecting Context-Dependent Paraphrases in News Interview Dialogs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.06670/) (2024)
- [Therapy as an NLP Task: Comparing LLMs and Human Peers Behaviors in CBT Sessions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.02244/) (2024)
- [Benchmarking the rationality of AI decision making using the transitivity axiom](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.10554/) (2025)
- [SocialLM: Social Signal Processing of Patient-Provider Communication using LLMs and Contextual Aggregation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.04152/) (2025)
- ["Is This Really a Human Peer Supporter?": Misalignments Between Peer Supporters and Experts in LLM-Supported Interactions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.09354/) (2025)
- ["I Said Things I Needed to Hear Myself": Peer Support as an Emotional, Organisational, and Sociotechnical Practice in Singapore](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.09362/) (2025)
- [StoryMI: Steerable Multi-Agent Therapeutic Dialogue Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.27393/) (2026)
- [Adapting from Downturns: Prediction of Long-Term Conversational-Skill Development in Mental-Health Crisis Counselors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.04350/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Millions of people participate in online peer-to-peer support sessions, yet there has been little prior research on systematic psychology-based evaluations of fine-grained peer-counselor behavior in relation to client satisfaction. This paper seeks to bridge this gap by mapping peer-counselor chat-messages to motivational interviewing (MI) techniques. We annotate 14,797 utterances from 734 chat conversations using 17 MI techniques and introduce four new interviewing codes such as chit-chat and inappropriate to account for the unique conversational patterns observed on online platforms. We automate the process of labeling peer-counselor responses to MI techniques by fine-tuning large domain-specific language models and then use these automated measures to investigate the behavior of the peer counselors via correlational studies. Specifically, we study the impact of MI techniques on the conversation ratings to investigate the techniques that predict clients' satisfaction with their counseling sessions. When counselors use techniques such as reflection and affirmation, clients are more satisfied. Examining volunteer counselors' change in usage of techniques suggest that counselors learn to use more introduction and open questions as they gain experience. This work provides a deeper understanding of the use of motivational interviewing techniques on peer-to-peer counselor platforms and sheds light on how to build better training programs for volunteer counselors on online platforms.