AI-Powered Mental Health Assistance and Chatbot

Mental health support systems are challenged in terms of accessibility, affordability, and stigmatization, which are barriers for people to access mental health support services. This project proposes a mental health support system called Mind Well, which is a hybrid AI-based mental health chatbot. The proposed mental health support system is based on a fine-tuned Distil BERT model to classify emotions in real-time and the Google Gemini API to deliver supportive responses to users. For responsible usage, the proposed mental health support system is based on a set of safety rules to avoid diagnosis, be transparent about being an AI companion, and refer users to helplines in crisis situations. The proposed mental health support system is implemented using a Flask-based backend with JWT authentication and a MongoDB database to ensure user safety and data privacy. Keywords: Mental Health Chatbot, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Emotional AI, BERT, Distil BERT, Conversational Agents, Psychological Support, AI in Healthcare.