Archive for the ‘gaming’ Category

Thursday, September 9th!

Join Kate Anthony, DeeAnna Merz Nagel and John Wilson as they host a VIRTUAL TOWN HALL MEETING ABOUT THE IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY AND MENTAL HEALTH AND ALL THAT IS ONLINE THERAPY!

We will discuss efforts of three of the leading organizations representing online mental health and we will offer information about upcoming conferences, continuing education opportunities and publications. This is a great opportunity for a brief introduction followed by a Q&A session.

You can join us in Second Life at the Online Therapy Institute Conference Centre, alternatively you can view this event from the OnlinEvents website and you will be able to communicate with us using the chat room on our Live Video page.

There is no charge for this event!

Check out the time of the event in your time zone:

San Francisco: 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
New York: 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
London: 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Sydney: 5:00 AM – 6:00 AM

For more information visit www.onlinevents.co.uk

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

..

Avatar Therapy is not new. The term has been discussed theoretically for nearly ten years. But now that virtualworlds have reached the mainstream and with the advent of gaming, many people understand the provocative power that exists with an avatar identity. People now live part of their lives virtually, sometimes existing in a mixed reality. Since technology and the internet have become such a part of our social fabric, separating time “online” from real world time is sometimes difficult and the lines have become blurred. Beyond standard email, people now chat and instant message, join social networks such as Facebook and MySpace and network professionally on sites such as Linkedin. People engage in consultation, business transactions, coaching and psychotherapy online via email, chat, audio and videoconferencing. The idea of engaging in therapy online within a virtual world environment is now reality. Second Life, a virtual world platform that is free to join already hosts private practitioners and mental health agencies offering psycho-education, consumer information and psychotherapy.

Three-dimensional virtual world settings offer another level of sensory experience that could enhance the therapeutic process. People can create an avatar that is a literal or metaphorical representation of self. Avatars can also represent a part of the self- perhaps the inner child or the shadow. With advances in technology and artificial intelligence, the ability to simulate various scenarios with therapy clients is not far off. Artificial intelligent avatars can be used in the therapeutic process to help a client heal from trauma, create a new ending to a dilemma, or work out unfinished business with a deceased loved one. These are but a few examples of how avatar therapy, with the aid of artificial intelligence and facilitation from a trained avatar psychotherapist can benefit people.

Properly trained avatar therapists would have a clear understanding of more traditional approaches to therapy online such as those mentioned above and understand the ethical issues related to online therapy and the delivery of mental health services through technological means. In addition, avatar therapists would have adequate knowledge of the online disinhibition effect as well as trauma related theories so that clients could be adequately prepared for avatar work. Avatar therapists would need to understand the importance of titrating emotions and properly grounding the client using containment techniques. Keeping the client emotionally safe would be paramount in a virtual environment because issues that would typically surface over several months or years could potentially surface much quicker in virtual world setting.

Avatar therapy of the future moves far beyond the therapist and client’s avatar representations engaging in an online form of traditional talk therapy. This futuristic and innovative therapy combines artificial intelligence with elements of traditional psychotherapeutic techniques used in grief work, and with trauma survivors as examples. Training therapists for this futuristic work can begin now in counseling education programs across the globe as we prepare practitioners to incorporate technology into the art of psychotherapy.

~ DeeAnna

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

… and the location is not too shabby either!

Lago Maggiore, Verbania-Intra, Italy

Below is a summary.  More information can be found at http://www.e-therapy.info/

Don’t forget to check the Online Therapy Institute’s Events Calendar for this and other related conferences!

The 14th Annual International CyberTherapy and CyberPsychology Conference (CT14) brings together researchers, clinicians, policy makers and funding agencies to share and discuss advancements in the growing disciplines of CyberTherapy & CyberPsychology.

The conference will seek input from a wider segment of the scientific community, and is interested in attracting experts in clinical therapy and rehabilitation, cognitive sciences, social sciences, and computer sciences interested in the meeting’s core topics: emerging applications of new media, design of new media and effects of new media.  

There is also an interest in continuing to design, evaluate and apply cutting edge technologies such as Ambient Intelligence, Augmented and Mixed Reality, Avatars, Shared Virtual Worlds, Video Game Virtual Reality (VGVR), Web 2.0 and 3.0,  3G and 4G mobile phones.

The woman, who has been jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his ID and password to log onto the popular interactive game Maple Story to carry out the virtual murder in May, a police official in the northern city of Sapporo said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of department policy.

“I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry,” the official quoted her as telling investigators and admitting the allegations.

The woman, a piano teacher, had not plotted any revenge in the real world, the official said.

She has not yet been formally charged. If convicted, she could face up to five years in prison or a fine up to $5,000.

More at:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081023/ap_on_re_as/as_japan_avatar_murder

The Online Therapy Institute is official and the proof is in the number of recent new members! Kate and DeeAnna welcome all who have embraced OTI as another place to network, advertise and learn!  Remember to visit us in Second Life as well.  Soon we will integrate group forum discussions at our Second Life office on the Islands of Jokaydia.

We have other plans as well.  2009 will bring new publications, online courses and more opportunities to network.  Stay tuned!

Kate and DeeAnna