Emotional Support

Emotional support, particularly in digital contexts, is a burgeoning research area aiming to understand and improve the delivery of empathetic and effective assistance. Current research focuses on developing AI models, often leveraging large language models (LLMs) and incorporating appraisal theory, to generate appropriate and nuanced responses to emotional distress, evaluating these models using both automated metrics and human assessments. This work holds significant implications for enhancing mental health support, particularly in online communities and through automated systems, by improving the accessibility and quality of emotional care.