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Parenting Journal · Volume 3 · Issue 1 · Licensed source edition

The Ability of AI Therapy Bots to Set Limits With Distressed Adolescents: Simulation-Based Comparison Study

Andrew Clark; John Torous

Originally published 2025-08-18 · JMIR Mental Health
JMIR Publications Inc. · DOI 10.2196/78414 ↗

KindnessSimulation-based comparative safety studyCC BY 4.0
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AI / system type

Generative AI/LLM therapy, companion and general-purpose chatbots

Child-facing evidence

Examines children or child-focused systems. Transfer to everyday family life must be assessed separately.

The AI connection

Generative AI/LLM therapy, companion and general-purpose chatbots. Shows why caring support sometimes requires setting limits rather than agreeing.

Why this reading matters

Directly interrogates the difference between empathy and uncritical agreement using consistent adolescent scenarios.

Editorial reading guide · Kindness

Will an apparently supportive chatbot challenge a harmful idea from a teen?

Shows why caring support sometimes requires setting limits rather than agreeing.

Study context

Ten public AI bots evaluated across 60 fictional exchanges

Age / stage: Fictional adolescent personas; no enrolled children

Read with three questions

  1. How were the three adolescent scenarios constructed?
  2. How often did bots endorse rather than oppose harmful proposals?
  3. Why are simulated response rates not clinical harm rates?

Keep the limits in view

Convenience systems and selected fictional scenarios; no adolescent participants or measured harms. Results depend on model versions, prompts and evaluation date.

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Attribution & reuse

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Original authorship, publication date, journal and DOI are preserved. This issue’s TRICK placement and reading questions are editorial additions, not claims made by the original authors.

CC BY 4.0 · License notice ↗Original repository record ↗

Andrew Clark; John Torous (2025). The Ability of AI Therapy Bots to Set Limits With Distressed Adolescents: Simulation-Based Comparison Study JMIR Mental Health. https://doi.org/10.2196/78414

Permissions checked against the saved article notice; repository publication notices screened 2026-11-04. This is not a new peer-review decision. The source authors and publishers are not represented as endorsing this issue.