Proposal and Development of a System to Help Students Improve Self-Compassion

Abstract

The number of students with mental disorders is increasing in universities. The Mindful Self Compassion (MSC) training program has been introduced and shown some efficacy. However, there are not a few people especially in Japanese who have difficulty with visual imagery recall or who feel resistance or discomfort in treating themselves with compassion. The purpose of this study is to propose and develop a system that helps such people to improve self-compassion using a virtual space and avatars. The user talks about his/her problems to the avatar who want to consult about their problems, then enter the consultant avatar and listens to the problems and responds with compassion, then returns to his/her own avatar and listens to the consultant talk with compassion. After basic studies, we developed a prototype and made a preliminary experiment.