Page 31 - 南京医科大学社会科学版

第5期 总第136期 南京医科大学学报（社会科学版）京医科大学学报（社会科学版） ·
南
2026年10月 Journal of Nanjing Medical University（Social Sciences）of Nanjing Medical University（Social Sciences） · 475
Journal

Ethical risks and regulatory paths of large language models in mental

health counseling

Zhu Xinyu，Ma Qinglian
Law School，Anhui Medical University，Hefei 231299，China
Abstract：Large language models（LLMs） are increasingly integrated into healthcare， reshaping the
organization and ethical norms of traditional mental health counseling. General ⁃ purpose LLMs lower access
barriers through broad linguistic capabilities，while domain ⁃ specific LLMs aim to improve task adaptability
through specialized training for mental health scenarios. This emerging paradigm shift，featured by data⁃driven
approaches，algorithm⁃enabled mediation，and scalable service delivery，may expand availability，reduce cost，
and support proactive prevention. However，such technological integration also introduces ethical and safety
risks，including privacy breaches in data collection and retraining，hallucinated or misleading outputs，and
technological paternalism that may erode users’informed consent and autonomy. In addition，amplified biases
and over ⁃ reliance may cause subtle harms and severe clinical consequences in extreme cases. Therefore，
governance should adopt a differentiated approach and regulate key stages of model development，deployment，

and service delivery across four dimensions，including strengthening data security，improving algorithmic
governance guidelines，reaffirming human⁃centered values，and enhancing professional ethical standards，to
enable safe，controllable，and equitable applications of LLMs in mental health counseling.
Key words：large language models；mental health counseling；ethical risks；technological regulation