Human- I was doing this 4 years ago using a similar program, I named my avatar Sigmund Freud and anonymous people would pop in for psychoanalysis, even went as far as proposing it as a method of therapy to the SHRRC, I had no response LOL! Since this rejection I have rationalized it as a virtual mind fuck with unrelenting indignation.
Psychotherapy in a virtual world has its advantages – particularly if the real world is what you can't cope with
BY MY fourth interview, I'd developed a checklist to use before each meeting. For starters, I would make sure I had grown some hair. I'd also check that I was fully clothed - I had learned the hard way about that one. Only then would I teleport to the interview, hoping that this time my avatar wouldn't materialise in anyone's lap.
Welcome to Second Life, a virtual world with almost 20 million players globally, where the avatars - digital stand-ins for the players - create everything around them. Every cobbled street, every tree swaying in the wind, even the wind itself, is the product of someone's imagination.
For some users, though, this isn't merely a game. It is precisely this ability to construct and control a virtual environment that is creating a new branch of psychotherapy - avatar therapy - in which therapists interact with their clients avatar to avatar.
On the face of it, this might sound like a pale imitation of a real-life therapy session. Yet its proponents say avatar therapy has some unique advantages that take psychotherapy to the next level. In Second Life, therapy sessions are not confined to the therapist's virtual office; they can also involve role-play scenarios to allow the patient to practise their newly learned coping skills in virtual environments tailored to their needs. All the while the therapist gives real-time feedback, like a medically qualified Jiminy Cricket.
Launched in 2003, Second Life was one of the first virtual worlds known as massively multiplayer online games. It was designed not for fighting monsters, but for people to socialise and, increasingly, emulate real life. Musicians have concerts, artists display their work and scientists go to meetings. People work, learn and connect in these virtual worlds. So can they be used for healing too?
As a technophile, I love the idea; as a psychotherapist used to working the old-fashioned way, I had reservations. So I decided to meet some of the advocates of virtual therapy in their own domain, avatar to avatar, to see if they could address my concerns.
One of my first interviews was with Dick Dillon, a real-life psychotherapist with Preferred Family Healthcare, a Missouri-based non-profit organisation that also leads the field of virtual therapy. In Second Life, Dillon's avatar is a bald, square-jawed hunk with a passing resemblance to Bruce Willis. He took me through a typical therapy session.
Talking by voice chat or instant messaging, you and your therapist may decide it is time to revisit the site of a traumatic event - a car crash, say. But in real life it is too far away, or perhaps you don't yet feel happy driving. No problem: your therapist builds, or "rezzes", the scene in a matter of minutes. Soon you are driving on a familiar road, with a steep bend similar to the one that you lost control on in the rain. As you approach the turn, your anxiety increases and your breaths become faster.
The therapist coaches you, reminding you of symptom-management techniques. If it all becomes too much, they zap you instantly back into the office.
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BY MY fourth interview, I'd developed a checklist to use before each meeting. For starters, I would make sure I had grown some hair. I'd also check that I was fully clothed - I had learned the hard way about that one. Only then would I teleport to the interview, hoping that this time my avatar wouldn't materialise in anyone's lap.
Welcome to Second Life, a virtual world with almost 20 million players globally, where the avatars - digital stand-ins for the players - create everything around them. Every cobbled street, every tree swaying in the wind, even the wind itself, is the product of someone's imagination.
For some users, though, this isn't merely a game. It is precisely this ability to construct and control a virtual environment that is creating a new branch of psychotherapy - avatar therapy - in which therapists interact with their clients avatar to avatar.
On the face of it, this might sound like a pale imitation of a real-life therapy session. Yet its proponents say avatar therapy has some unique advantages that take psychotherapy to the next level. In Second Life, therapy sessions are not confined to the therapist's virtual office; they can also involve role-play scenarios to allow the patient to practise their newly learned coping skills in virtual environments tailored to their needs. All the while the therapist gives real-time feedback, like a medically qualified Jiminy Cricket.
Launched in 2003, Second Life was one of the first virtual worlds known as massively multiplayer online games. It was designed not for fighting monsters, but for people to socialise and, increasingly, emulate real life. Musicians have concerts, artists display their work and scientists go to meetings. People work, learn and connect in these virtual worlds. So can they be used for healing too?
As a technophile, I love the idea; as a psychotherapist used to working the old-fashioned way, I had reservations. So I decided to meet some of the advocates of virtual therapy in their own domain, avatar to avatar, to see if they could address my concerns.
One of my first interviews was with Dick Dillon, a real-life psychotherapist with Preferred Family Healthcare, a Missouri-based non-profit organisation that also leads the field of virtual therapy. In Second Life, Dillon's avatar is a bald, square-jawed hunk with a passing resemblance to Bruce Willis. He took me through a typical therapy session.
Talking by voice chat or instant messaging, you and your therapist may decide it is time to revisit the site of a traumatic event - a car crash, say. But in real life it is too far away, or perhaps you don't yet feel happy driving. No problem: your therapist builds, or "rezzes", the scene in a matter of minutes. Soon you are driving on a familiar road, with a steep bend similar to the one that you lost control on in the rain. As you approach the turn, your anxiety increases and your breaths become faster.
The therapist coaches you, reminding you of symptom-management techniques. If it all becomes too much, they zap you instantly back into the office.
READ MORE
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