Co-Designing a Virtual Reality Intervention for Supporting Cognitive Reappraisal Skills Development with Youth

Cognitive reappraisal is a critical emotion regulation skill required for youth mental health. While it has been well theorized psychologically and many therapeutic approaches exist, youth still struggle to develop these skills. We explore the design space of using virtual reality to create technologically-mediated cognitive reappraisal supports for youth. We developed four VR prototypes that we used as prompts for feedback in a ten-session co-designworkshop with nine youth (aged 15-17). Our work contributes youth-derived directions for further research in the design space of VR and mental health; and highlights opportunities to use VR for cognitive reappraisal skills training by generating meaningful emotionally laden situations, supporting body-based experiential learning, and providing technology-mediated social connection.