Alternative Story Construction Support System for Narrative Therapy through Fact Recall Assistance

Abstract

In these years, schools are required to provide students with emotional support. Students who suffer from psychological stress tend to perceive their experience negatively and estimate themselves low. In order to support such students, narrative therapy is important. The narrative therapy is the psychotherapy by changing dominant stories, which consist of the negative aspects of the facts, to the alternative stories, which consist of the positive aspects of them. Such therapy is achieved by the skilled therapists, but it is difficult for the schools to prepare enough number of therapists for the stressed students. This study proposes a system that substitutes for human therapists by supporting the construction of alternative stories. We first model the process of self-evaluation, which is based on evaluations of facts associated with personally important perspectives. Based on this model, we develop a system that supports the recall and reevaluation of the facts. The system generates questions to help uses recall additional facts or reevaluate known facts from different perspectives, thereby guiding them toward generating more positive alternative narratives.