Artificial Intelligence Painting Interactive Experience Discovers Possibilities for Emotional Healing in the Post-pandemic Era

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted mental health worldwide. However, many individuals are reluctant to seek professional treatment due to a lack of awareness and passive social judgment. In order to help those "silent majority" groups, we discover an adaptive and inclusive strategy to help individuals overcome mental sub-health states. We chose an Artificial Intelligence (AI) painting platform called "Mid journey" and invited six participants with different professional backgrounds to create interactive healing experiences. "Mid journey" generates paintings based on their input keywords. The AI algorithm generates four images within 30 s, which can be further modified through continuous iteration, resulting in a final picture that meets the participant's psychological expectations. They created six paintings with the common theme of childhood memories, recreation, and entertainment linked to healing. The paintings incorporated elements of nature, the sky, and the ocean, which might reflect the connection between "healing" and unrestrained freedom. The results show that the interactive experience of AI painting can help residents experience the emotional healing journey and reduce their psychological stress. In addition, AI painting can surpass human creativity and imagination, providing a unique and potential way for future research on design research and practice related to emotional healing.