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Therapy, Explained: How Multi‑Agent LLMs Turn DSM‑5 Screens into Auditable Logic

TL;DR DSM5AgentFlow uses three cooperating LLM agents—Therapist, Client, and Diagnostician—to simulate DSM‑5 Level‑1 screenings and then generate step‑by‑step diagnoses tied to specific DSM criteria. Experiments across four LLMs show a familiar trade‑off: dialogue‑oriented models sounded more natural, while a reasoning‑oriented model scored higher on diagnostic accuracy. For founders and PMs in digital mental health, the win is auditability: every symptom claim can be traced to a quoted utterance and an explicit DSM clause. The catch: results are built on synthetic dialogues, so ecological validity and real‑world safety remain open. ...

August 18, 2025 · 5 min · Zelina