Beyond Feeling Better: Capability-Sustaining Emotional Dialogue as a Longitudinal Research Paradigm

2026-07-30

AI Summary

This study addresses a critical gap in existing emotionally supportive dialogue systems, which predominantly prioritize immediate emotional relief while neglecting users’ long-term capacities for emotion regulation, autonomous decision-making, and social connectedness. To redress this imbalance, the paper introduces the Capability-Sustaining Emotionally Supportive Dialogue (CSED) paradigm, shifting the focus toward sustained capability development through a lifecycle perspective that encompasses phases of repeated use, transition, and termination. The framework foregrounds previously overlooked dimensions such as dependency risk, user autonomy, and boundary behaviors. Guided by PRISMA-ScR, the authors conduct a corpus audit and develop a process model linking user capabilities, design commitments, and evaluation timelines. Their analysis reveals that 95% of current systems adopt relief-oriented objectives, with only 43% of responses in mainstream corpora offering capability support, thereby establishing actionable pathways for CSED implementation across data curation, model training, policy design, and governance.

Abstract

Emotional dialogue research includes two influential strategy traditions. Empathetic dialogue prioritizes understanding a speaker's emotional experience. Emotional support conversation selects and sequences support for the seeker's current needs. Sustained use introduces a further goal. Effective support should sustain users' capacities for emotion regulation, coping, self-endorsed decisions, and social connection across the interaction lifecycle. We propose capability-sustaining emotional dialogue (CSED) as a longitudinal research paradigm that aligns supportive strategy with this goal and organizes data, models, system design, evaluation, and governance around repeated use, non-use, transition, and termination. A targeted literature-and-corpus audit motivates this position. In a PRISMA-ScR-guided sample, 95% of 60 system-building papers pursue relief-oriented goals. None evaluates capability or longitudinal outcomes, and only 1 considers dependency, autonomy, or termination risk. In 300 ESConv supporter turns, capability-relevant functions appear in 43.0%, while generic suggestions account for 22.0%, compared with 4.0% reappraisal, 6.7% self-efficacy support, and 0.3% boundary behavior. We release a protocol for extending the audit to model behavior. An illustrative process model connects latent user capability to six design commitments, four evaluation timescales, and lifecycle constraints. The resulting agenda makes CSED testable across data, policy design, training, evaluation, and governance.

Problem

• emotional dialogue
• capability-sustaining
• longitudinal support
• emotion regulation
• autonomy

Innovation

• capability-sustaining emotional dialogue
• longitudinal paradigm
• emotional support conversation
• user autonomy
• lifecycle-aware evaluation