Two Modes of Reflection: How Temporal, Spatial, and Social Distances Affect Reflective Writing in Family Caregiving

Therapeutic writing offers significant benefits for well-being; however, for family caregivers, conventional fixed or user-initiated schedules often fail to align with their dynamic, high-stress reality. We conducted a three-week field study with 47 caregivers using a chatbot that delivered daily reflective writing cues and captured temporal, spatial, and social contexts. Our analysis identified a writing spectrum anchored by two distinct reflective modes. Under psychologically proximal conditions, participants produced detailed, emotion-rich, and care-recipient-focused narratives that supported emotional release. Under distal conditions, they generated calmer, self-focused, and analytic accounts that enabled objective reflection and cognitive reappraisal. Participants described trade-offs: proximity preserved vivid detail but limited objectivity, while distance enabled analysis but risked memory loss. This work contributes empirical evidence of how psychological distances shape reflective writing and proposes design implications for distance-aware Just-in-Time Adaptive Interventions for family caregivers' mental health support.