mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Do You Understand How I Feel?: Towards Verified Empathy in Therapy Chatbots

arXiv 2601.08477 ↗First posted 13 Jan 2026cs.CL cs.HC cs.SEcited by 0

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Abstract (arXiv)

Conversational agents are increasingly used as support tools along mental therapeutic pathways with significant societal impacts. In particular, empathy is a key non-functional requirement in therapeutic contexts, yet current chatbot development practices provide no systematic means to specify or verify it. This paper envisions a framework integrating natural language processing and formal verification to deliver empathetic therapy chatbots. A Transformer-based model extracts dialogue features, which are then translated into a Stochastic Hybrid Automaton model of dyadic therapy sessions. Empathy-related properties can then be verified through Statistical Model Checking, while strategy synthesis provides guidance for shaping agent behavior. Preliminary results show that the formal model captures therapy dynamics with good fidelity and that ad-hoc strategies improve the probability of satisfying empathy requirements.

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References · 13

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  12. 2024Analyzing and Debugging Normative Requirements via Satisfiability Checkingcited by 5
1 more
  1. 2025How Toxic Can You Get? Search-based Toxicity Testing for Large Language Modelscited by 2

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