# PsychePass: Calibrating LLM Therapeutic Competence via Trajectory-Anchored Tournaments

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.20330 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.20330/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 14 of its 32 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 28 Jan 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 14 of 14)

- [Efficient Memory Management for Large Language Model Serving with PagedAttention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.06180/) (2023)
- [HybridFlow: A Flexible and Efficient RLHF Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.19256/) (2024)
- [GLM-4.5: Agentic, Reasoning, and Coding (ARC) Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.06471/) (2025)
- [PsyQA: A Chinese Dataset for Generating Long Counseling Text for Mental Health Support](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.01702/) (2021)
- [CPsyCoun: A Report-based Multi-turn Dialogue Reconstruction and Evaluation Framework for Chinese Psychological Counseling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.16433/) (2024)
- [PsyDT: Using LLMs to Construct the Digital Twin of Psychological Counselor with Personalized Counseling Style for Psychological Counseling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.13660/) (2024)
- [Improving LLM-as-a-Judge Inference with the Judgment Distribution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.03064/) (2025)
- [PsycoLLM: Enhancing LLM for Psychological Understanding and Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.05721/) (2024)
- [Towards a Client-Centered Assessment of LLM Therapists by Client Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.12266/) (2024)
- [Psyche-R1: Towards Reliable Psychological LLMs through Unified Empathy, Expertise, and Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.10848/) (2025)
- [Crisp: Cognitive Restructuring of Negative Thoughts through Multi-turn Supportive Dialogues](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.17238/) (2025)
- [Psi-Arena: Interactive Assessment and Optimization of LLM-based Psychological Counselors with Tripartite Feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.03293/) (2025)
- [MindEval: Benchmarking Language Models on Multi-turn Mental Health Support](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.18491/) (2025)
- [CARE-Bench: A Benchmark of Diverse Client Simulations Guided by Expert Principles for Evaluating LLMs in Psychological Counseling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.09407/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Assessing Risks of Large Language Models in Mental Health Support: A Framework for Automated Clinical AI Red Teaming](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.19948/) (2026)
- [From Pattern Recognizers to Personalized Companions: A Survey of Large Language Models in Mental Health](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.25186/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

While large language models show promise in mental healthcare, evaluating their therapeutic competence remains challenging due to the unstructured and longitudinal nature of counseling. We argue that current evaluation paradigms suffer from an unanchored defect, leading to two forms of instability: process drift, where unsteered client simulation wanders away from specific counseling goals, and standard drift, where static pointwise scoring lacks the stability for reliable judgment. To address this, we introduce Ps, a unified framework that calibrates the therapeutic competence of LLMs via trajectory-anchored tournaments. We first anchor the interaction trajectory in simulation, where clients precisely control the fluid consultation process to probe multifaceted capabilities. We then anchor the battle trajectory in judgments through an efficient Swiss-system tournament, utilizing dynamic pairwise battles to yield robust Elo ratings. Beyond ranking, we demonstrate that tournament trajectories can be transformed into credible reward signals, enabling on-policy reinforcement learning to enhance LLMs' performance. Extensive experiments validate the effectiveness of PsychePass and its strong consistency with human expert judgments.