Where do LLMs Fall Short in CBT-Guided Affective Reasoning?

arXiv:2607.02885v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) provides a structured framework for understanding a user's mental state by examining the interaction between cognitive and behavioral factors. However, out-of-the-box LLMs respond fluently and empathetically, yet collapse into validation & reflection, regardless of what the user actually needs. They know theoretical CBT (scoring up to 96% accuracy on licensing exam questions) but fail to apply it effectively. We e...