Rolling With Resistance: Preference-Optimized LLM Counselors Can Trade Goal Persistence for Relational Attunement in Motivational Interviewing

arXiv:2607.28814v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: In Motivational Interviewing (MI), a client's sustain talk (arguments for the status quo) calls for the counselor to roll with resistance, a move that can fail in two opposite ways: capitulation (abandoning the change agenda to preserve rapport) or confrontation (arguing or directing, overriding the client's autonomy). We introduce a two-axis evaluation of counselor responses, anchored in the Motivational Interviewing Treatment Integrity (MITI) cod...