ABSTRACT
During the COVID-19 pandemic, a public consultation in Singapore indicated that most respondents struggled to afford mental health care. AI chatbots are being trialled as an early support option. However, these AI chatbots do not presently deliver culturally nuanced mental health interventions and can exacerbate the deterioration of mental wellbeing through neoliberal resilience rhetoric. The chapter reflects on the performance of mental wellbeing required of young people in a Singaporean education context and argues for the creation of culturally nuanced mental health interventions developed in conversation with people with lived experience of struggling with mental wellbeing. Adopting narrative inquiry as the methodology, this chapter extends Ian Marsh’s analysis of diagnostic assessment tools as performative. These AI chatbots train users to perform mental wellbeing, thus shaping personal narratives of mental wellbeing. This cultivates public performances of mental wellbeing which can, over time, shape social norms.
