"When He Feels Cold, He Goes to the Seahorse"-Blending Generative AI into Multimaterial Storymaking for Family Expressive Arts Therapy
This work addresses the underexplored problem of using generative AI in therapeutic storymaking for families, offering insights for therapists and HCI researchers, though it is incremental in blending existing technologies.
The study explored integrating generative AI with traditional art materials in family expressive arts therapy, finding that families creatively used both to externalize ideas and feelings, with implications for therapeutic practice and HCI design.
Storymaking, as an integrative form of expressive arts therapy, is an effective means to foster family communication. Yet, the integration of generative AI as expressive materials in therapeutic storymaking remains underexplored. And there is a lack of HCI implications on how to support families and therapists in this context. Addressing this, our study involved five weeks of storymaking sessions with seven families guided by a professional therapist. In these sessions, the families used both traditional art-making materials and image-based generative AI to create and evolve their family stories. Via the rich empirical data and commentaries from four expert therapists, we contextualize how families creatively melded AI and traditional expressive materials to externalize their ideas and feelings. Through the lens of Expressive Therapies Continuum (ETC), we characterize the therapeutic implications of AI as expressive materials. Desirable interaction qualities to support children, parents, and therapists are distilled for future HCI research.