# Harnessing Large Language Models' Empathetic Response Generation Capabilities for Online Mental Health Counselling Support

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.08017 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.08017/

## Key facts

- Cited by 17 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 12 of its 26 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 12 Oct 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 12 of 12)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [Language Models are Few-Shot Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14165/) (2020)
- [Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Knowledge-Intensive NLP Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.11401/) (2020)
- [Judging LLM-as-a-Judge with MT-Bench and Chatbot Arena](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.05685/) (2023)
- [Large Language Models are Zero-Shot Reasoners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.11916/) (2022)
- [LIMA: Less Is More for Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.11206/) (2023)
- [A Computational Approach to Understanding Empathy Expressed in Text-Based Mental Health Support](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.08441/) (2020)
- [Knowledge Bridging for Empathetic Dialogue Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.09708/) (2020)
- [Perspective-taking and Pragmatics for Generating Empathetic Responses Focused on Emotion Causes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.08828/) (2021)
- [Helping the Helper: Supporting Peer Counselors via AI-Empowered Practice and Feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.08982/) (2023)
- [Empathetic Conversational Systems: A Review of Current Advances, Gaps, and Opportunities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.05017/) (2022)
- [CAB: Empathetic Dialogue Generation with Cognition, Affection and Behavior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.01935/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 17 of 17)

- [MentalChat16K: A Benchmark Dataset for Conversational Mental Health Assistance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.13509/) (2025)
- [Large Language Models in Mental Health Care: a Scoping Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.02984/) (2024)
- [Are Large Language Models More Empathetic than Humans?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.05063/) (2024)
- [PersoBench: Benchmarking Personalized Response Generation in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.03198/) (2024)
- [Exploring User Security and Privacy Attitudes and Concerns Toward the Use of General-Purpose LLM Chatbots for Mental Health](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.10695/) (2025)
- [MentalAgora: A Gateway to Advanced Personalized Care in Mental Health through Multi-Agent Debating and Attribute Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.02736/) (2024)
- [Empathy Level Alignment via Reinforcement Learning for Empathetic Response Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.02976/) (2024)
- [The Pursuit of Empathy: Evaluating Small Language Models for PTSD Dialogue Support](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.15065/) (2025)
- ["I Like Sunnie More Than I Expected!": Exploring User Expectation and Perception of an Anthropomorphic LLM-based Conversational Agent for Well-Being Support](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.13803/) (2024)
- [Automating PTSD Diagnostics in Clinical Interviews: Leveraging Large Language Models for Trauma Assessments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.11178/) (2024)
- [GIEBench: Towards Holistic Evaluation of Group Identity-based Empathy for Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.14903/) (2024)
- [RedditESS: A Mental Health Social Support Interaction Dataset -- Understanding Effective Social Support to Refine AI-Driven Support Tools](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.21888/) (2025)
- [Mixed Chain-of-Psychotherapies for Emotional Support Chatbot](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.19533/) (2024)
- [Exploring the Effect of Robotic Embodiment and Empathetic Tone of LLMs on Empathy Elicitation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.20518/) (2025)
- [An Offline Mobile Conversational Agent for Mental Health Support: Learning from Emotional Dialogues and Psychological Texts with Student-Centered Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.10580/) (2025)
- [Mentalic Net: Development of RAG-based Conversational AI and Evaluation Framework for Mental Health Support](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.04456/) (2025)
- [CARE: Counselor-Aligned Response Engine for Online Mental-Health Support](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.21352/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable performance across various information-seeking and reasoning tasks. These computational systems drive state-of-the-art dialogue systems, such as ChatGPT and Bard. They also carry substantial promise in meeting the growing demands of mental health care, albeit relatively unexplored. As such, this study sought to examine LLMs' capability to generate empathetic responses in conversations that emulate those in a mental health counselling setting. We selected five LLMs: version 3.5 and version 4 of the Generative Pre-training (GPT), Vicuna FastChat-T5, Pathways Language Model (PaLM) version 2, and Falcon-7B-Instruct. Based on a simple instructional prompt, these models responded to utterances derived from the EmpatheticDialogues (ED) dataset. Using three empathy-related metrics, we compared their responses to those from traditional response generation dialogue systems, which were fine-tuned on the ED dataset, along with human-generated responses. Notably, we discovered that responses from the LLMs were remarkably more empathetic in most scenarios. We position our findings in light of catapulting advancements in creating empathetic conversational systems.