"Can you be with that feeling?": Extending Design Strategies for Interoceptive Awareness for the Context of Mental Health

Awareness of internal sensations, or interoceptive awareness (IA) is a topic of interest spanning multiple disciplines. In psychology, several therapeutic frameworks which cultivate IA have emerged. Meanwhile, HCI designers have developed novel approaches to IA across diverse contexts and design goals. These HCI strategies may hold value for mental health, however, it’s unclear to what degree designerly IA techniques match or contrast with those used in therapeutic settings. We seek to address this gap in two parts. First, we offer a set of design opportunities based on IA practices used in HCI and findings from interviews with 22 counselors. Second, we share context-specific insights from a 5-week probe study involving 24 young women with nonclinical disordered eating behaviors, which are linked to interoceptive deficits. Together, the design opportunities and probe study findings provide guidance and highlight open questions regarding the design of technology-mediated IA support for mental health.