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Virtual Agent for Real-Time Motivational Interviewing by Integrating Adaptive Nonverbal Behavior and Language Models

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Clients as conversational agents.

Helen F Massfeller¹, Tom Strong

¹Educational Studies in Counselling Psychology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada. hfmassfe@ucalgary.ca

Patient Education and Counseling

|April 25, 2012

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Clients actively shape therapeutic dialogues through their conversational initiatives and correctives. Responsive counselors foster collaborative consultations, enhancing client influence on the session agenda.

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Area of Science:

* Psychology
* Linguistics
* Communication Studies

Background:

* Understanding client participation in therapy is crucial for effective treatment.
* Conversational agency, defined as clients' active role in therapeutic dialogues, remains underexplored.
* Previous research has not fully examined how client initiatives and correctives shape collaborative consultations.

Purpose of the Study:

* To examine the influence of clients' conversational correctives and initiatives on collaborative therapeutic consultations.
* To investigate how clients' active participation shapes the content and direction of therapy sessions.
* To analyze the impact of client-led conversational turns on the therapeutic alliance.

Main Methods:

* Analysis of 35 videotaped single-session lifestyle consultations with adult clients.
* Discursive microanalysis of client-initiated topic shifts and corrections of counselor misunderstandings.
* Examination of counselor responses to client-led conversational interventions.

Main Results:

* Clients actively co-managed conversational developments, demonstrating significant influence.
* Client correctives, interruptions, and divergent viewpoints shaped the therapeutic dialogue.
* Clients successfully influenced the content and trajectory of consultations through agentive contributions.

Conclusions:

* Clients demonstrably influence the conversational agenda in face-to-face consultations through initiatives and correctives.
* Counselor responsiveness to client contributions is key to enabling client influence.
* Clinicians should enhance sensitivity and relational responsiveness to engage clients' agentive roles in dialogue.