Theme 1: Sources of stress 

This theme highlights the intersecting stressors Thai undergraduate students face, shaped by academic demands, social relationships, and personal identity development. The three sub-themes – academic pressure, social and interpersonal challenges, identity and future uncertainty – illustrate how these stressors emerge in students’ lived experiences. 

Sub-theme 1.1: Academic pressure 

Academic demands were the most common stressor, reported by nearly half the participants. Students described coursework overload, tight deadlines, high-stakes assessments, and pressure from peers, instructors, and family. This aligns with prior studies on academic stress in higher education (Barbayannis et al., 2022; Rhein & Nanni, 2022). Participant 1 (Lumina’s adventure) depicted this burden through a dark forest scene where a menacing black dragon represents the fear of failing to manage multiple tasks, with the narrative: “I’m stressed about doing many things at once and fear it won’t turn out well.” This framing externalises stress as a mythic antagonist, revealing how academic pressure can take on monstrous emotional proportions. 

Sub-theme 1.2: Social and interpersonal challenges 

Participants reported stress from interpersonal issues such as unresolved conflict, social exclusion, and pressure to maintain harmony in groups. These relational stressors mirror findings on the impact of peer relationships on youth mental health (Auerbach et al., 2018), which are heightened in Thailand’s collectivist culture, which values social cohesion and avoiding confrontation (Buacharoen et al., 2018). Participant 12 (Mom is still there) conveyed feelings of social discomfort and alienation: “Being in a new environment – surrounded by people – still leaves me feeling lonelier than ever... This environment made me feel like I didn’t belong.” In the video, a classroom photo placed on the character’s forehead symbolises the tension between the pressure to belong and the invisibility felt within a group. The image reflects how social identity can become an imposed and emotionally burdensome label. 

Sub-theme 1.3: Identity and future uncertainty 

Participants described stress linked to uncertainty about identity, career paths, and long-term goals. Such concerns are typical in emerging adulthood (Arnett, 2000), and are often amplified in cultures where family and societal expectations shape life choices (Srisopa et al., 2023). Participant 11 (Good pretender) portrayed confusion and insecurity: “The character is confused, unconfident, afraid, and worried after another character’s sudden departure.” The faceless figure shown from behind symbolises lost self-definition and internal uncertainty, while the other’s departure suggests a triggering event that deepens this disorientation. 

These three sub-themes show that Thai undergraduates experience stress through the intertwined pressures of academic expectations, social dynamics, and identity formation. Participants’ narratives and visuals reveal deeper emotions of inadequacy, isolation, and inner conflict. In Thailand’s collectivist context, the drive to meet external expectations often intensifies these struggles, making stress both a personal and a cultural experience. These findings highlight the need for approaches that address student stress within both individual and cultural dimensions. 

Theme 2: Coping mechanisms 

This theme explores the strategies Thai undergraduate students use to manage stress, reflecting a balance between personal resilience and relational support. Three sub-themes emerged – problem-focused coping, emotion-focused coping, and social support – aligning with Folkman and Lazarus’ (1980) coping framework. Within Thailand’s collectivist culture, where harmony and family expectations shape emotional responses, these strategies reveal how individual agency and social context jointly support recovery and growth. 

Sub-theme 2.1: Problem-focused coping 

Participants used proactive strategies to tackle stressors directly, including persistence, skill building, and seeking resources – consistent with Folkman and Moskowitz’s (2004) framework on effective problem-focused coping. Participant 13 (Return to the field) emphasised growth through skill development: “The character went back to training and didn’t dwell on past mistakes.” The video’s gym training scenes visually reinforce themes of resilience and a forward-looking mindset. 

This example illustrates how problem-focused coping empowered participants to reframe adversity as an opportunity for action. Rather than merely enduring stress, they viewed it as a challenge to be met with effort, practice, and persistence. 

Sub-theme 2.2: Emotion-focused coping 

Participants used emotion-focused strategies such as writing, self-reflection, entertainment, physical activity, and mindfulness to manage their stress, especially when stressors felt uncontrollable (Crum et al., 2020). Participant 7 (The missing 1% feels like losing everything) shared, “Sometimes I write to vent my feelings. It helps me feel lighter, like I’m letting go.” The video’s imagery of a white paper marked with water stains and a signature symbolises emotional release through written expression. 

This narrative illustrates how emotion-focused strategies function as adaptive tools for managing internal distress. Though not directed at changing the stressor itself, these methods offer crucial emotional relief, often depicted through symbolic moments of release, escape, or transformation. Writing, in particular, serves as both catharsis and a means of reclaiming agency through narrative, while moments of distraction reflect the tension between confrontation and avoidance – a recurring theme in individual coping. 

Sub-theme 2.3: Social support 

Participants identified social support as a key coping mechanism, relying on friends, family, and trusted individuals to manage stress. This reflects Thailand’s collectivist culture, where interpersonal harmony and emotional interdependence are central to well-being (Buacharoen et al., 2018). Participant 2 (The hero’s journey) highlighted the soothing power of emotional connection: “Talking to someone for relaxation works well to some extent.” In the video, a guiding fairy accompanies the protagonist through danger, symbolising the grounding and supportive presence of trusted relationships during challenging times. 

Across the three sub-themes, participants showed diverse coping strategies – problem focus, emotional focus, and social support – reflecting both personal agency and Thailand’s collectivist values. Coping was portrayed as an ongoing process of adaptation and meaning-making, where persistence, emotional release, and relationships transformed stress into growth and self-understanding through short-form storytelling. 

Theme 3: The role of short-form video creation in self-expression 

This theme examines how creating short-form videos served as a medium for emotional expression, self-reflection, and transformation. Grounded in Expressive Arts Therapy and The hero’s journey framework, participants used storytelling to externalise struggles and find new meaning. The three sub-themes – creative expression as catharsis, reflection and self-discovery, and challenges in the creative process – highlight both the therapeutic potential of digital media and the emotional and technical complexities of creation. 

Sub-theme 3.1: Creative expression as catharsis 

Participants described video creation as a therapeutic outlet for emotional expression, consistent with Expressive Arts Therapy principles (Malchiodi, 2022). Feedback from the Experience Survey highlighted it as a structured yet creative space for releasing emotions and processing inner turmoil. This aligns with Saladino et al. (2020), who noted that therapeutic filmmaking offers a safe container for difficult emotions through visual storytelling. Participant 15 (Jane’s journey) portrayed a protagonist pursuing a dream despite resistance: “The way I cope with stress gives me a sense of relief and makes me feel safe in my feelings”. The story reflects the participant’s values, linking courage with emotional safety. Through digital storytelling, they could embody and observe their emotions, creating space for reflection and release. Symbolic elements – chains, a younger shadow-self, and shifts from dark to warm tones – transform inner turmoil into visible metaphors. In the final scene, light falls on the character as she embraces her younger self, symbolising healing, self-acceptance, and reclaimed agency. Here, video creation becomes a reparative process, turning coping into an act of resilience and hope. 

Sub-theme 3.2: Reflection and self-discovery 

Creating and reviewing short-form videos allowed participants to reflect on their stress and coping strategies, deepening self-awareness and emotional insight. Many shared that crafting their narratives helped them reassess challenges, recognise hidden strengths, and view themselves with greater compassion. This aligns with Simons’ (2022) view that storytelling fosters self-understanding by shaping personal experience into meaningful structure. Participant 6 (I’m still scared but I’m braver now) illustrated this through Annie’s journey – in which a child overcomes fear of public speaking through practice and encouragement – blending symbolism and personal growth within the six-piece story-making framework (Lahad, 2013). 

Sub-theme 3.3: Challenges in the creative process 

While many participants found video creation meaningful and therapeutic, several faced challenges, including time constraints, technical issues, and emotional vulnerability. These difficulties highlight the structural and emotional complexity of self-expression through digital media, echoing Nguyen’s (2023) call for both technical and emotional support in digital storytelling. The 30–90-second limit proved particularly demanding, forcing choices about what to include or omit. Participants also noted frustrations with storage, editing, and exporting. More significantly, some experienced emotional resistance when revisiting painful memories, as transforming lived experience into narrative required confronting unresolved emotions – an experience that was both cathartic and unsettling. Participant 14 (The tale of the hero’s journey) described their video as “a story about a woman who expresses herself through her drawings, and the story in that book reflects her life journey.” At the 90-second mark, the protagonist appears centred against a bright background – a visual turning-point symbolising emergence, visibility, and quiet acceptance. This moment serves as both a narrative and a symbolic resolution. 

These sub-themes illustrate how symbolic elements are presented in the video content, along with narrative structures under each theme and sub-theme in the thematic analysis. 

Discussion 

This study examined how Thai undergraduate students experience stress, cope with challenges, and use short-form video storytelling as a means of emotional expression. It focused on three themes – sources of stress, coping mechanisms, and the role of short-form video creation in self-expression – highlighting how digital storytelling can function as a culturally relevant expressive arts modality for young people. 

Sources of stress 

Participants’ stressors centred on academic pressures, interpersonal challenges, and uncertainty surrounding identity and future direction. These findings align with research showing that Thai university students commonly experience high academic expectations, competitive environments, and strong familial influence on educational and career decisions (Pramukti et al., 2020; Srisopa et al., 2023). The videos’ symbolic imagery of dragons, dark forests, faceless figures, and constrained younger selves visually captures internal conflicts consistent with Expressive Arts Therapy principles, where metaphor and symbol externalise emotional states (Malchiodi, 2022; Weiser, 2018). The visual metaphors used by participants not only reinforced how stress was experienced cognitively, but embodied and expressed through imaginative forms. 

Coping mechanisms 

Participants described a mix of problem-focused efforts (e.g., preparation, rehearsal, and persistence), emotion-focused strategies (e.g., journaling, distraction, and self-talk), and reliance on social support from peers and family. These findings mirror established models of coping that distinguish between direct problem-solving and emotion regulation (Compas et al., 2017; Folkman & Moskowitz, 2004). The prominence of social support reflects Thailand’s collectivist cultural orientation, where emotional connection and family presence are central to managing distress (Buacharoen et al., 2018). Symbolically, characters such as helpers, companions, and maternal figures served as visual anchors of support, reinforcing the importance of relational resources in resilience. 

Short-form video creation as self-expression 

A key contribution of this study is the insight into how short-form video creation supported emotional expression, reflection, and meaning-making among participants. Many described the creative process as cathartic, enabling them to transform internal experiences into symbolic narratives. This aligns with Expressive Arts Therapy frameworks that emphasise aesthetic distance, symbol formation, and creative play as mechanisms for emotional regulation and insight (Hogan, 2020; Loewenthal, 2013). By working with metaphors, imagery, and structured storytelling, participants externalised difficult emotions in safe, indirect ways – mirroring therapeutic storytelling or digital narrative approaches used in Expressive Arts Therapy (Cohen & Johnson, 2015; Lambert et al., 2023). 

Participants also reported experiencing self-discovery through reviewing and constructing their videos. This reflective function is consistent with literature showing that narrative reconstruction and creative media can foster self-awareness, reauthoring of experience, and a sense of agency (Rogers et al., 2023; White & Epston, 1990). The visual motifs of journeys, transitions from darkness to light, and characters gaining confidence highlight how students revisited and reframed their experiences through symbolic sequences.  

At the same time, several participants identified challenges in the creative process, including time constraints, technical difficulties, and the emotional weight of revisiting stressful memories. These obstacles reflect broader concerns in digital storytelling research regarding technical barriers and the need for emotional scaffolding when engaging participants in expressive digital work (Nguyen, 2023). The tension between limited format (e.g., 90 seconds) and complex emotional stories suggests that structured support and clear containment may be essential when applying short-form video creation in therapeutic contexts. 

Implications for Expressive Arts Therapy and youth mental health 

Findings from this pilot study suggest that short-form video storytelling is an accessible, developmentally appropriate tool for exploring emotions, particularly among digitally fluent youth. The modality aligns naturally with Expressive Arts Therapy practice, combining imagery, sound, sequence, metaphor, and narrative in a multimodal format. It may be especially useful in settings where students struggle to articulate feelings verbally or where stigma limits help-seeking. Integrating guided video creation into workshops, support programmes, or therapeutic groups could provide a culturally relevant pathway for emotional expression and peer connection. 

Limitations and future research 

This pilot study has several limitations. The sample was small, self-selected, and limited to undergraduate students in Bangkok, which restricts transferability to more diverse populations. Data relied on self-reported reflections and short-form videos, creating potential for selective disclosure, and the interpretive nature of thematic analysis introduces subjectivity despite reflexive rigour. The creative process also evoked emotional content for some participants, highlighting the need for clearer containment when using digital storytelling outside therapeutic settings. 

Future research should explore more diverse and rural groups, use mixed-methods or longitudinal designs to examine changes over time, and compare short-form video creation with other expressive arts modalities. Investigating how digital storytelling can be safely integrated into therapeutic or educational programmes may further inform its potential as an accessible tool for youth mental health and Expressive Arts Therapy.  

Conclusion 

This pilot study examined how Thai undergraduate students express stress, cope with challenges, and reflect on their experiences through short-form video storytelling. Participants represented academic pressure, relational difficulties, and identity uncertainty through symbolic imagery, and described using a range of coping strategies supported by personal effort, emotional regulation, and social connection. The creative process itself functioned as an accessible form of emotional expression and reflection, illustrating the potential of short-form videos as a culturally relevant expressive arts modality for digitally fluent youth. 

Although exploratory, the findings highlight an emergent avenue for integrating guided digital storytelling into mental health and educational settings. Short-form video creation may offer young people a familiar, low-threshold way to articulate inner experiences, engage with metaphor, and foster self-awareness within supportive environments. With further research, this modality may contribute to the expanding toolkit of Expressive Arts Therapy approaches for youth mental well-being.