Archive for the ‘cyberpsychology’ Category

Kate and DeeAnna are presenting at 2VCC in Second Life! We will be facilitating a Q&A with  Jason Spingarn-Koff, director of the movie, Life 2.0. Our topic, Demonstrating Cyberculture through Film: Life 2.0 discusses how Jason’s documentary about Second Life can increase cultural competency among counselors, psychologists and other helping professionals. See full conference information and schedule below! Be sure to catch our session on Wednesday 9/15/2010 @ 3pm EST.

2nd Virtual Conference on Counseling (2VCC)
September 15-18, 2010

http://sl.counseloreducation.org

The 2VCC will cover 4 days with over 40 presentations on issues related to counseling, counselor education, supervision and the use of technology (particularly Second Life) in counseling practice and training.

The conference is FREE and available to interested professionals. Reregistering for the conference on this website will assure that you will get information notecards and a program booklet emailed to you for this conference.

You can attend the conference in Second Life starting at the Counselor Education in Second Life center SLURL Marina Del Rey 102, 70, 27. The schedule of presentations will be available through this website.

You can also watch a live stream of the conference provided by http://www.onlinevents.co.uk The live stream is a great opportunity to show portions of the conference to your whole class without the burden of having to manipulate your avatar into Second Life.

2nd Virtual Conference on Counseling (2VCC)
All times are Eastern Time Zone (GMT -5)
Sessions will occur at CESL in Second Life (SLURL Marina Del Rey 102, 70, 27)
Portions of 2VCC will be web-streamed through Onlinevents.co.uk at http://onlinevents.co.uk
Attendance is free – Continuing education contact hours are free and available

9/15/2010 Wednesday

10:00 AM
1. Opening Session: Marty Jencius and Debra London

11:00 AM
2. Keynote session: Sexualized Role Play in Second Life and Beyond: Meaning and Implications. David Delmonico

12:00 PM
3. Technologically Mediated Relationship Changes, Katherine Herman and Courtney Holmes

1:00 PM
4. Counseling in GenderLand: A guide for you and your transgendered clients, Niela Miller

2:00 PM
5. Immersive Simulations in Counselor Education, David Stone and Deborha Patten

3:00 PM
6. Demonstrating Cyberculture through Film: Life 2.0 Questions and Answers, DeeAnna Merz Nagel, Kate Anthony and Jason Spingarn-Koff

4:00 PM
7. Second Life as a Pedagogical Tool: Comparing the Learning Styles and Perceptions of Counselor Education Students of Second Life, Leslie O’Ryan and Jacob Glazier

5:00 PM
8. Evaluating Student Cognitive, Affective, and Psychomotor Learning During Patient Interviewing and Diagnosis Activities, Victoria Walker and Jason Baker

6:00 PM
9. Counseling Internet and Online Issues, Paul Silverman

7:00 PM
10. The Effectiveness of Art Therapy, Nicole Brickell

8:00 PM
11. Project Pathways: Interactive Technology in the Counseling Classroom, Joseph Davis

9:00 PM
12. Training Play Therapists in a Virtual World, Julie Robinson, Jill Packman, Maria Devine Ogino

10:00 PM
Mixer / Entertainment

9/16/2010 Thursday

11:00 AM
13. Competencies in Addressing the Christian Client’s Worldview, Cheryl Durham

12:00 PM
14. Can I trust you? Can you really help me?, Brandon Browning

1:00 PM
15. CACREP Goes International with IRCEP: The International Registry of Counselor Education Programs, Carol Bobby and Rebecca Stanard

2:00 PM
16. Using Arts Processes as Psychological Tools in Second Life, Niela Miller (Note 90 minute presentation held at Niela’s SL Location)

3:00 PM
17. Developing and Implementing Online Supervision in Counselor Education: Strategies to get Started, Jonathan Lent and Paula Britton

4:00 PM
18. Teaching, Learning and Living in SL: A year in the Life of a Newbie, Chadwick Royal

5:00 PM
19. Age Cohorts: Preparing a Young Counseling Workforce for an Aging Generation, Nicki Nance

6:00 PM
20. Power and Control: When Counselors Abuse, Paul Fornell

7:00 PM
21. The Top 5 Mistakes Therapists Make in Building a Successful Therapy Practice, Laura Dessauer

8:00 PM
22. Factors Related to Severity and Prognosis in Mood Disorders, Todd Finnerty

9:00 PM
23. Counseling Stand UP Comedy Tour: Ludwig Wiigenstein and the Telling of Second-Order Truth Through Humor, Brian Mistler

10:00 PM
Mixer / Entertainment

9/17/2010 Friday

10:00 AM
24. Directives in Art Therapy, Nicole Brickell

11:00 AM
25. The Fourth Dimension: 4-D Communications with Adolescents, William Scott

12:00 PM
26. Collaborative Approach to High School to College Transition Programs, Annette Albrecht and Dennis Jones

1:00 PM
27. Facilitating Second Lives in Real Life, Tom Blume, Joel Lane, and Keolegobile Semphadie

2:00 PM
28. Service Learning with Online Graduate Students. Kylie Dotson-Blake

3:00 PM
29. Counselors-in-training Implement the ASCA National Model, Aaron Oberman

4:00 PM
30. Suicide Assessment using SIMPLE STEPS, Jason McGlothlin

5:00 PM
31. Teaching Supervision to Counselors using the Discrimination Model, Clarrice Rapisarda, Kimberly Desmond, and Jill Nelson

6:00 PM
32. Public Relations and School Counseling: Learning to Promote the Counseling Program, Kimberly Desmond, Clarrice Rapisarda, and Jill Nelson

7:00 PM
33. My Client’s Don’t Know I am LGBT Friendly: Helping School and Mental health Counselors Meet the needs of LGBT Youth, Rachel Vitale, Harry Warner, Julie Krause, and Amanda Cole

8:00 PM
34. Eating Disorder Recovery in a “War on Obesity” World, Shannon Cutts

9:00 PM
Mixer / Entertainment

9/18/2010 Saturday

10:00 AM
35. Q Methodology as a Tool for Agenda Setting. Klara Overland

11:00 AM
36. Digital Story Telling in a Multicultural Counseling Course, Diana VanWinkle, Marty Jencius

12:00 PM
37. Innovation, Avatars, and Virtual Counseling, Dick Dillon

1:00 PM
38. Publishing Your Book in Counselor Education, John Blando

39. Discovering Callings and Contributing to Community: Where Spirituality and career Development Converge, Edward Colozzi

2:00 PM
40. Artificial Neural Networks: An Introduction to Their uses in Statistical Modeling and Comparison of Predictive Power versus Multiple Regressions, Brian Mistler

3:00 PM
41. Counselor TV: Creating and Running a Streaming Television Channel, Michael Baltimore

4:00 PM
42. Closing Session

On Tuesday, May 11th I had the pleasure of attending the screening of Life 2.0, a documentary about Second Life, at ICF Theatre’s  Stranger Than Fiction. Director Jason Spingarn-Koff follows people for a period of over a year or more as they maneuver life lived in a mixed reality.

The scenarios include two people, each married to someone else,  involved in a cyberaffair, complete with hook-ups in Second Life to using webcam technology for face-to-face encounters. Their love affair takes them out of cyberspace for several in-person encounters. Emotions are high and limerence, that state of intense romantic desire for another person, is clearly evident. This is an affair of great proportions~ emotional, cerebral and physical~ filled with the excitement and consequences of infidelity.

An intimate look  into the lives of several people who are brave enough to share their stories continues. Another young adult who is engaged to be married logs into Second Life and soon he has created an alter~ an 11 year-old girl who he describes is a part of himself. This story line is rich and psychodynamic offering a glimpse into the impact of virtual worlds on the lives of people who have experienced childhood trauma. The vulnerabilities of the adult male, his alter child female, his “real life” fiance and other avatars the child befriends in Second Life are all laid out across the screen in a disturbing yet expected fashion.

A woman searching for meaning in her vocation  discovers that she can merge her love of gaming with her talent for design. She also explains that she has been dealing with several health issues so working from home is a plus for her. She starts a business creating a line of clothing and accessories as well as designer homes and landscapes. She manages to turn her hobby into a profitable enterprise. As with any entrepreneur, she applies focused concentration and long hours.

It is the stuff of life that therapists have been dealing with for years, or is it?

Enter the ability to create an alternate digital reality and these life struggles become magnified. Online disinhibition means that people do and say things in cyberspace they might not be able or willing to do or say in their “real life.”  Quotations are purposeful here because the underlying message is that these cyber experiences ARE real- as real as what I had for breakfast this morning.

So what does this documentary offer those of us in the helping professions? How about a new chapter in multiculturalism? Cyberculture is rich, full, real and impactful. Our clients don’t just go to soccer games, or movies or to Paris or Walt Disney. They don’t just have clandestine affairs at work or deal with historical issues of abuse in the therapist’s consultation room. They go to Second Life, another destination rendering the thrill of decadent and clandestine meetings, corporate enterprise, vocational fulfillment and the ability to create a new beginning, reconstruct a past event or extend parts of oneself into another reality.

If you have the opportunity to view Life 2.0, don’t miss it.  Your understanding of cyberspace will grow beyond measure.

Stay tuned for more about Life 2.0. We will regularly post notes of interest to our readers.

DeeAnna

..

OTI has been remiss in offering regular blog posts these past couple of months but with good cause and great outcomes!

So what’s in store for 2010? Our authored book, Therapy Online: A Practical Guide was just released and we have another edited book, The Use of Technology in Mental Health: Applications, Ethics and Practice due out this summer. This book has 30 chapters with a total of 47 contributing authors from across the globe.

As promised, we are offering online training about online therapy. We have launched the first 6 workshops with more to come. Each workshop is the equivalent of 5 clock hours of instruction. The workshops are online and self-paced.  The cost per workshop is $119.00/70.00 £.

• Introduction to Cyberspace: A Primer for Helping Professionals
• Relationships in Cyberspace: An Introduction for Helping Professionals
• The Online Therapeutic Relationship: Theoretical Considerations
• Ethical Considerations of Online Therapy
• Working Therapeutically Using Asynchronous Email
• Working Therapeutically Using Synchronous Chat

The workshop details can be accessed at our training portal. We have partnered with DigitalChalk to bring you a user-friendly yet state-of-the-art experience. Continuing Education credits for U.S. psychologists, social workers and counselors will be available very soon.

www.onlinetherapyinstitute.digitalchalk.com.

Just create an account and peruse our catalog! Your account will remain active should you decide to return to take a course.

We are giving our website a facelift so resources are easier to navigate.

We will soon offer an Online Therapy Institute ~verified~ seal that will provide a way for online helping professionals to indicate to the public that their site meets standards of best practice.

We will be facilitating groups and workshops as well as co-sponsoring conferences online and at our Second Life location.

We are collaborating with others to add to our Ethical Framework resources.

We have created:

• Ethical Framework for the Use of Technology in Mental Health
• Ethical Framework for the Use of Technology for Career and School Guidance

Coming Soon:

• Ethical Framework for the Use of Technology in Professional Coaching
• Ethical Framework for the Use of Technology in Crisis, Disaster and Critical Incident Interventions
  

We are offering a directory listing to everyone who joins our social network at www.onlinetherapysocialnetwork.com and your listing will be posted at www.onlinetherapydirectory.net.

For OTI members who practice online, a website listing in the OTI Web Directory (online counseling category) will be added provided the following standards are met:

1. Offer encrypted services for email, chat and web conferencing.
2. List level of education, schools attended and dates graduated.
3. List certifications and licenses if applicable with verification web links.
4. List crisis information or a link on the website’s home page.
5. List therapist’s alternate contact information in addition to email.

Mostly, we will continue to encourage dialogue among our members and friends at Online Therapy Institute so that we can all learn and grow together!

Kate and DeeAnna

Here in the UK, I read The Guardian on a daily basis, and Thursday is my favourite day because it has the Technology section.  Victor Keegan asks today whether the virtual boom is the current industrial revolution with regard to virtual gifts – such as roses, birthday cakes, and teddy bears sent via FaceBook and other social networks.  These “are often paid for with “virtual” currencies”, so one can exchange them for $$ or ££, etc.

 

What caught my eye about this article is that he points out that society is being carried away by the word “virtual”, so for instance a block of chocolate, which disappears into your mouth, becomes virtual.  More to the point, many of the things we think of as “real” – such as money or the value of a brand (Keegan cites Nike) – are in themselves virtual…. but we are used to them and so consider them real.

 

The full article is available here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/sep/09/victor-keegan-virtual-world-revolution

 

So – what has this to do with online therapy?

 

If a face-to-face session is thought of as being transient – that is, it existed in real time but no longer does apart from the memory and the learning from it (like the chocolate – I ate it and I enjoyed it and am therefore likely to do it again therefore adding to my life experience, but it is past), does that make it less virtual than online therapy sessions (where the record of the session is logged, printed, carried, re-read).  Is the reason for the suspicion of online therapy simply that we are not used to thinking of it as real, because our professional history shows that we believe face-to-face therapy as being “real”.  The face-to-face session is past and is only in our memory – the online session gives us tangible evidence of it.  It doesn’t make the fleeting face-to-face session less real… but it means the online session exists at any point we – or more to the point, the client  - want to re-experience it. 

 

So – does that mean the online therapy session is technically less virtual than face-to-face therapy?

 

Kate

The International Therapist Leadership Institute founded by Casey Truffo is presenting a Practice Building Virtual Conference October 13-17th, 2009.  The speaker line-up is great with the likes of Bill O’Hanlon and Ofer Zur to name but two.

My presentation will be on October 15th at 3PM PST. I will be speaking on the topic of Online Therapy.

The presentation will offer talking points for the therapist who is interested in offering online therapy (email, chat, webcam, VOIP) as adjunct to existing face-to-face clients and to new clients that begin the therapeutic relationship virtually. Considerations will include confidentiality. proper intake and informed consent.

I hope you can make it! There will be many great topics presented by great speakers so don’t forget to register!  Continuing Education is available. ~ DeeAnna

Yesterday I completed facilitation of a two-day Distance Credentialed Counselor training in Springfield, IL.  Every time I do a training I meet great people and I learn.  In this training there was much concern expressed about therapists being able to cross state lines; how to know what each state’s law says, and whether there is a “clearinghouse’ for such information.

Well, OTI has an Ethics and Law wiki and we do our best to keep it updated as we receive information about the legal and ethical aspects of practicing online counselling across the globe.  But still, this method relies on all of us to make sure the updates are received in a timely manner and that Kate and I can upload the information that is sent to us if a person does not enter the information to the wiki him/herself.

So in this training I heard of two more states that may have implemented restrictive language into their law regarding online counseling- not allowing a licensed practitioner in that state to offer online therapy services to anyone outside the state (MA and NE).  I am hoping I can get more clarification and actually see a copy of their language.

And so on my drive back the hotel it occurred to me that one way we can effect change as professionals in our various states and countries is to become active in our professional organizations.  If you are in the states and you are member of APA, ACA, NASW, get involved. Join taskforce committees.  To have influence in your state, join a state chapter.  Volunteer to be on the board. Be part of a government relations or ethics committee.  Become the ethics chair of your state chapter.  That is how we can begin to educate our colleagues about the value of online counseling.  I do not think we should be legislating WHERE online counseling can occur.  I think we should be legislating competency.

It is obvious to me that state licensing boards are way behind the curve when it comes to understanding the global community – and global e-commerce.  Placing practice restrictions on licensed professionals does not allow consumers choice in treatment, and seems to be a rather paternalistic stance.  And clearly, state licensing boards have no clue about the online culture.  Most states require practitioners to have taken a class on multiculturalism to obtain a license to practice, yes? Yet the boards do not understand that we have an entirely new culture of people who live within a mixed reality, choosing to receive professional services online through their global community.  So if we look at the online community as a culture, then we could make the claim that in this instance, our state boards are not being very culturally sensitive, could we not?

While this issue of “crossing state lines” is rather U.S.-centric, my point in this post is to encourage professionals to become involved in their local professional organizations no matter what country, so that we can all make a difference.  We want online therapy to be a viable option within the global community!!

Have a great summer day!

DeeAnna

The Georgia Society for Clinical Social Work in conjunction with NASW Georgia Chapter recently invited me facilitate a workshop entitled Ethical Implications of Cyberspace: Understanding the Clinical Risks and Responsibilities. It has been a little over a week since I returned from Georgia having experienced a most welcoming group of workshop attendees. GSCSW recently published an article in their newsletter entitled Protecting Boundaries in a Boundary-less World- Part 1 of an Ongoing Discussion- Setting Boundaries in the Use of Email in Clinical Social Work. I look forward to reading the next discussion in this series following the workshop!

The workshop went quite well and we spent the afternoon working in small groups, pondering over 10 ethical dilemnas.  Each group gave feedback on how they would handle the scenario.  Kate and I brainstormed the scenarios and intentionallly developed them ranging from obvious…to …oh, that would never happen!  The workshop attendees had great feedback, thoughts and ideas about all 10 scenarios and it was such an eye-opening experience for all of us- the workshop attendees and Kate and myself, that we are going to present the scenarios one by one over the course of several weeks here on the blog.  We hope to generate loads of comments and thought-provoking discussion. 

Stay tuned for mind-stretch ethical dilemnas! As we all navigate the waters of online therapy, cyberpsychology and boundaries in cyberspace let’s put our collective heads together and see what we can come up with!  In the meantime, check out the GSCSW article!

Thanks again Georgia social workers!  You rock!

DeeAnna

 

ReachOut.com.au is a youth targeted website providing support and information about mental illness.   The Australian, an online newspaper, gives an interesting perspective with opinions from experts internationally, about ”Cyberspychology” and how it can help.  More here:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25376388-23289,00.html

Kate

We have had several inquiries lately about membership at the Online Therapy Institute; particularly- what are the benefits of joining?

• Advertising
• Networking
• Media Opportunities
• Case Consultation

OTI offers several ways for people to collaborate, network and gain knowledge about mental health and technology.  We have free discussion groups through Linkedin, Facebook, Second Life and our own social network.  We blog and we tweet to keep everyone up-to-date on the latest happenings in the field.  Membership is not necessary through these groups and many are satisfied with the affiliation they currently have with us.  Becoming a member however, brings additional benefits. 

When a person, business, organization, educational institution or charity joins OTI we spread the word about their cause, services, products, or training. Beginning in 2009, all members who join receive a dedicated blog post which is fed to many blog directories and social networks such as Linkedin and Twitter.  We also create a listing in our Web Directory and the new listing is then fed to Twitter and other networks.  We create another way to advertise through social media and we promote our members by assisting with research projects, networking and offering media connections.  We promote member workshops and trainings related to mental health and technology through our blog and events calendar.

For qualified clinical members, we offer a secure and encrypted forum for peer supervision and one-off case consultation regarding online and face-to-face cases.  The forum is facilitated and feedback is offered by Kate Anthony and DeeAnna Merz Nagel.

If you interested in joining, access the membership form here. Come grow with us!! And please do not hesitate to ask any questions of us. 

Annual Membership Fees

$ 50.00 USD  INDIVIDUAL Clinical and Professional

$ 75.00 USD  ORGANISATIONAL Non-profit/Charity/Educational Institution/Association

$100.00 USD ORGANISATIONAL Business/Corporate

Kate and I received an email from Ananda Valeeva who is the Editor-in-Chief of Inner World Magazine.  She is writing an article on behaviors, emotions and the therapeutic value of virtual worlds. She came across the Online Therapy Institute and has included the institute in her article. So she wanted to let us know and asked if we could meet inworld, talk a bit and snap some pics of us at our office in Second Life.  Well now that sounds like fun, and so we went about the business of arranging a time.

Ananda emailed and stated her available SL time.  Hmmm, I thought.  I vaguely remembered SL time yet had never had a need to use it.  But with all of us in different countries, made sense. So I went inworld to see what time it was in SL currently and the time stamp said PST (Pacific Standard Time).  Huh, [scratch head] now what? I went to Second Life’s Help feature, no luck. So I googled SL Time Zone.  And the answer was revealed! http://sl.nmc.org/2007/01/02/time-zones/ - A blog post from 2007 explains it. SL time was a nifty idea conjoured up by Linden Lab but apparently it ws so confusing for most that the idea was abandoned and now everything in Second Life is on PST (California) where Linden Lab, the creator of Second Life, is located. 

Ok so that is not so hard.  I know what time zone I live in (EST) and I know what time it is in the UK – 5 hours ahead of me. Now, let’s see, Ananda lives in Brazil…

Well, we finally figured it out- 3 different time zones establishing a meeting in yet another time zone. But it felt like I was in 7th grade math class trying to solve a word problem!

See you inworld Ananda!!

(oh my, what shall I wear?)

And we will keep the rest of you posted!

DeeAnna