Self-care with AI: Strengthening your mental wellbeing with algorithms
We use generative AI and popular digital applications every day to fulfill a variety of tasks. What if we can fully harness the potential of AI to strengthen our mental resilience, build emotional clarity, and manage our overall mental wellbeing? This course provides the building blocks on how to map out your mental health journey with AI!
Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled Mental Health Applications (MHAs) have emerged as promising tools with significant clinical evidence on their effectiveness in improving mental health (Figueroa & Aguilera, 2020). Recent studies by a group of Dartmouth researchers showed that participants who spent 8 therapy sessions (6 hours over 8 weeks) with a psychotherapeutic chatbot had 51% reduction in symptoms of depression and 31% in anxiety, reporting high levels of trust and therapeutic alliance (Dartmouth College, 2025). By leveraging user-generated data and advanced algorithmic processing, MHAs offer scalable, cost-effective, and personalized mental health support, including psychoeducation, mood and emotions tracking, cognitive behavioral therapy, and tailored behavioral interventions (O’Loughlin et al., 2019). With the barriers of getting proper mental health care, AI enabled mental health solutions could be equally effective in helping users improve their mental health care (Gamble, 2020).
In this 90-minute course, I will be proposing effective usage of AI in mental wellbeing with key examples from empirical studies, role of AI in mental health support, recommendation of AI enabled mental health apps, and how to circumvent limits and ethical issues (e.g. errors, data privacy, dependance & maximizing effectiveness) (De Freitas et al., 2024; Nosta, 2025a, 2025b; O’Loughlin et al., 2019). Participants would have a couple of interactive sessions to try out a mental health app or learn prompts for generative AI like ChatGPT and design their own mental health app route map. (Activities may be adjusted based on discussion time).
This course is part of Studium Generale's Mental Health Course Programme.