Validating and Dialectical Coaching Strategies in a Virtual Coach for Obese Emotional Eaters 61 3 Coach The virtual coach provides feedback and coaching based on the information users put down in the emo.analyser. 2 | Emo.analyser The emo.analyser is a built-in tool to help the user to register what happened today that made them experience cravings or binges. The goal of the emo.analyser is to create awareness by examining the factors that lead to problematic eating behaviour and the consequences that follow on that behaviour. The user gets to the emo.analyser by (a). on her initiative, because she is experiencing cravings or is thinking of binging; (b). as a result of a conversation with the Virtual Coach, triggered by emotion – or eating behaviour related words, or (c). the user logged in after a reminder to visit the app and the answer to one question about her current emotional status. In a progressive scheme the user will be questioned about her eating behaviour over the past 24 hours. See Figure 2. The first step of six is to point out the problem behaviour (1). Problem behaviour varies frommindless eating to binge eating. The next step is to determine the prompting event (2) that triggered the problem behaviour. Prompting events emerge in the user’s surroundings. The user specifies what made her vulnerable (3) to perform that specific behaviour. This event could have an internal or external reason, such as physical illness or being home all alone, or being invited to a birthday party. The problem behaviour and the prompting event are linked (4) by a series of thoughts, actions, bodily sensations and cognition. Once these are all identified, users are to describe the consequences (5) of their problem behaviour. This way of behaving varies from staying away from a birthday party, to feeling numb, or being depressed. The last step in the chain is to figure out how to repair (6) and reduce vulnerability for example by getting more sleep, or by not buying snack food. The emo.analyser collects the above-mentioned data and provides feedback, shown in a graphic presentation, on the discovered behaviour patterns. By doing the exercise over and over, the user gains a better understanding of patterns in how she responds to emotional occurrences, the impact on her eating behaviour, and the consequences for her emotional well-being. Based on the context (e.g., the weather, log data on location, calendar) and data about the personality and emotional state of the user, the virtual coach application enables tailoring of real-time feedback to the individual user (A). The Virtual Coach provides the user with validating and dialectical coaching strategies (B). These strategies ratify the emotions that the user experiences, but could also put them on edge by providing statements that oppose each other. By expressing opposite sides that both hold true, a sense of imbalance might be achieved which brings about a renewed attitude towards her behaviour eventually [28]. It helps the user to monitor her
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