Posts Tagged ‘avatar therapy’

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

..

The Online Counselling and Therapy in Action (OCTIA – see www.octia.org.uk) conference (now in its second year), took place in Manchester, England  and online this March 2010  through chat rooms, live video and my own presentation taking place in Second Life with its own chat.

The photograph below shows me presenting to the room of delegates at the OCTIA conference venue, with my own laptop in front of me.  Behind me on the screen is the view from my laptop perspective into Second Life, where I was joined by colleagues from all over the world represented as avatars, who had their own chat facility with me via my laptop and the delegates in the room who were also in Second Life as avatars (hence the laptops in the audience).  The screen on the wall to my right is where I was shown live from the perspective of one of the other delegates in the room in Second Life, with the official OCTIA chatroom being scrolled to the right of the video, where I was also taking part via audio and my laptop via text.

If that description sounds confusing, the point is that I was present in five different realities simultaneously, presenting worldwide.  This groundbreaking event reached four continents – Europe, the USA/Canada, South America and Australia – bringing them together to discuss the use of virtual and mixed realities in counselling and psychotherapy experientially.  To ensure the delegates watching in the physical room and online were truly able to understand what working in mixed realities is like, I wore the same clothes that my avatar is based upon, clearer in the photograph below (with my virtual self centre-front of the screen (from my perspective, hence the back view)).

You can also view a video by John Wilson of OnlinEvents and pics of the event. Jokay, founder of Jokaydia where our OTI office and conference center is located,  took some great pics while inworld. We are ever so grateful for her design expertise and professional support.

The Islands of jokaydia is a virtual worlds community of practice facilitated by Jo Kay aka jokay Wollongong. We are exploring the use of virtual worlds and games for education, arts and social change. You can find us in Second Life, Reaction Grid and our new virtual worlds presence – the jokaydia Grid!

We hope you will visit us inworld! If you’d like to check out Online Therapy Square, and the OTI Headquarters visit: http://slurl.com/secondlife/jokaydia%20II/110/68/24.

Kate and DeeAnna met with Jokay today in Second Life to discuss new builds and additions to Online Therapy Institute’s virtual office. Currently, OTI has an office space that has an open concept. The office is used primarily as a place to gather more information about OTI. The space has been used for consultations and media interviews as well. (see The Coaching Commons:  Quick Video: A Voyage into the World of Virtual Coaching and InnerWorld Magazine Online Therapy Institute).

Now OTI is expanding inworld with a SkyBox build. The SkyBox will be located above the original office and will offer a therapy room, a small group room and a classroom.  A SkyBox location allows for more security so that others inworld cannot simply “drop in” at will. When conducting avatar therapy inworld, other measures will be utilized to ensure confidentiality such as encrypted chat and voice. Platforms like Skype can be used in conjunction with Second Life.

Jokay founded the Islands of Jokaydia where the OTI office is located. All of the residents of Jokaydia focus on education in one form or another so OTI found it to be a natural fit. Across the square from the OTI office is the office of OnlinEvents. John Wilson who owns OnlinEvents is also a therapist inworld. OTI and OnlinEvents collaborate frequently on projects and our new SkyBox will allow for even more diverse collaboration! Between the two offices will be the newly named “Therapy Square” offering resources for passersby.

Today Jokay showed Kate and DeeAnna a SkyBox space she has created for Charles Sturt School of Information Studies (also located inworld at Jokaydian Islands). This picture is at Charles Sturt’s space in Second Life.

The meet up with Jokay was great fun- it was like meeting with the builder and the decorator all at the same time! Kate and DeeAnna will keep you posted on the developments. In the meantime, visit us inworld!

The direct link is http://slurl.com/secondlife/jokaydia%20II/147/45/24.

Regards from the virtual world!

 

Be sure to follow all of us on twitter as well! @TherapyOnline @KateAnthony @jokay @OnlinEvents

This is to announce a conference that will be held in Second Life Sep 16-18.

This conference is free and offers CE through NBCC.

The conference is coordinated by Dr. Marty Jencius, Assistant Professor and Counselor Educator at Kent State as well as founder and list manager for CESNET-L, a professional listserv for counselor educators and co-founding editor of The Journal of Technology in Counseling, a web-based, peer reviewed journal.

Kate Anthony and DeeAnna Merz Nagel will be co-presenting a Keynote entitled: Online Therapy in Second Life and the Online Therapy Institute.

General Information:

http://sl.counseloreducation.org/Conference/conference.html

Conference Schedule:

http://sl.counseloreducation.org/vccschedule/vccschedule.html

Registration:

http://sl.counseloreducation.org/Registration/registration.php

Hope to see you inworld!

DeeAnna

Science Notes is written and illustrated by the students in the Science Communication Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Kate and DeeAnna were interviewed for a podcast by Kayvon Sharghi,  student and Science Journalist.

The podcast is now available along with a very interesting accompanying article, I Am My Avatar. The podcast by the same title, I Am My Avatar is described as follows:

Kayvon Sharghi enters the virtual reality realm of Second Life to interview two “online therapists.” These specialists discuss how to treat traumas or psychological problems by working with their clients’ avatars—their online characters.

These links will take you to the article and the full list of available 2009 podcasts:

http://scicom.ucsc.edu/SciNotes/0901/pages/avatar/avatar.html

http://scicom.ucsc.edu/SciNotes/0901/pages/podcasts.html

Kayvon, thank you for your work!

Kate and 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

The Metaverse Journal interviewed DeeAnna and myself about our online therapy and our work inworld.  http://tinyurl.com/cj7t7k

We discuss various issues about using Second Life to host therapy sessions – our optimism about it as well as our concerns around security and encryption, and how we got into this field in the first place. We are so thrilled to have the opportunity to discuss this topic in such a well respected media venue.  The Metaverse Journal has long been one of our favorite picks!

Hope you enjoy it!

Kate

Want to keep up with the latest posts, blog, news and information about mental health and technology?  We can’t track it all but we make every effort to bookmark new and interesting information related to the Online Therapy Institute and news related to cyberpsychology, online counseling, avatar therapy and other related topics.  Check out our bookmarks at http://delicious.com/OnlineTherapyInstitute.  Do you know of a bookmark we should add?  Let us know!

DeeAnna

The Online Therapy Institute’s presence in Second Life was featured in a Scientific American 60-Second PSYCH podcast, which discusses topics related to e-therapy, avatar therapy and behavioural telehealth. Counselling and psychotherapy in virtual worlds is a growing trend, and is examined in the upcoming textbook “Mental Health and the Impact of Technological Development”, edited by Kate and DeeAnna, by John Wilson of the UK. Also mentioned on the podcast is Dr. Craig Kerley, for his presence in SL – a Psychologist based in Georgia in RL.