Towards Building Mental Health Resilience through Storytelling with a Chatbot

Abstract

The prolonged lockdown from the COVID -19 pandemic has caused a dramatic increase in the number of mental health concerns in the community. Students are among those vastly affected . Their socio- economic and financial conditions add challenges to their academi c difficulty and work -life b alance that can fuel issues related to mental health and well -being. To cope with these challenges, they need to strengthen their resilience to possess the abil ity to face and recover from adversity. In this paper, we descr ibe how a mental health cha tbot can help strengthen the resilience skills of tertiary level students through daily conversations. The se conversations are aimed at promoting one’s well-being through self -assessment and car e. Grounded on the u se of narratives to encourage students to express their emotions, Seligman’s PERMA model is utilized as a basis for evaluating the student’ s well-being and suggesting coping mechanisms to maintain one ’s positive mental health and emotions.