Thesis

Chapter 3 62 emotional and behavioural patterns. Personalised coaching is articulated by providing validating or dialectical comments based on the patterns. Figure 2 | emo.analyser Validation strategies focus on ‘empathic’ approach suggesting to genuinely hear another person’s point of view and accept them (and their emotions) just the way they are, without judging. For example, in a dialogue a (virtual) coach is clarifying the message of the user by ‘reflection’: “So what I hear you saying is...” or ‘direct’: “To me it makes sense that. ”; or ‘empathising’ the emotion “I can see you are sad”; or a cognition “Is that true, or you just think it is?”; or in a more ‘cheerleading’ way “You are doing well. I am proud of you!”, and radically accept the messenger. Dialectical means finding the synthesis out of opposites (thesis + antithesis). It is finding a balance between acceptance and change: accepting the occurrence of strong feelings and emotions making use of mindfulness and stress tolerance and adapting feelings and emotions using emotion regulation and interpersonal effectiveness. Dialectical strategies focus on confronting the user with a practical focus on changing problem behaviour. Dialectical strategies consist of several sub-strategies, such as ‘entering the paradox strategy’ with “and” versus “but” responses; the use of ‘natural change’ with the “That was then, this is now…” response; the ‘making lemonade out of lemons strategy’ with the “That’s great!” response; the ‘devil’s advocate technique’, with the “Are you sure?” response, or ‘extending’ with the “Wow, that’s pretty serious!” response. To make users completing the emo.analyser questionnaire on a daily basis, the virtual coach sends out a (WhatsApp or SMS) message to the user with the question whether

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