The Raelian Movement
for those who are not afraid of the future : http://www.rael.org
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Avatar therapy: From couch to cyberspace
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727781.700-avatar-therapy-from-couch-to-cyberspace.html?full=true
* 23 September 2010 by Samantha Murphy
* Magazine issue 2778. Subscribe and save
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.
According to Dillon, this set-up lets the therapist give real-time
feedback while providing an experience that feels genuine, yet takes
place in the safe environment of a simulation. The emotions are real.
The rewards are real. Only the location is fake.
The emotions are real. The rewards are real. Only the location is fake
"When the brain sees a 3D object in real life it converts it to a 2D
object in the visual cortex," says Jeremy Bailenson, head of the
Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford University in California.
Perhaps that's why a virtual scene can still provoke a strong
psychological reaction, he says.
Phobia exposure
One of the first applications of avatar therapy was in treating social
anxiety disorder, a crippling shyness that can confine people to their
homes. James Herbert, head of the anxiety treatment and research
programme at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was
among the first wave of researchers to investigate avatar therapy.
Encouragingly, clients generally rated the treatment highly, though
there were exceptions. "Some patients and therapists reported
frustration with not being able to see the individual's face," he
says, and sometimes technical difficulties interrupted the sessions.
Avatar therapy has also helped people with phobias. In real life, the
usual treatment is to gradually expose people to the source of their
fear, but this can sometimes be difficult. An avatar therapist can
introduce the phobia source while remaining in complete control,
scaling the experience up or down according to the client's reaction.
In fact, many of the conditions treated by face-to-face talk therapy
can also be treated virtually, including depression and anxiety.
Avatar therapy is proving useful for more diverse conditions too, such
as traumatic brain injury, schizophrenia and Asperger's syndrome. So
far studies have shown similar success rates to traditional therapy
for social anxiety (Cyberpsychology & Behavior, vol 8, p 76) and
post-traumatic stress disorder (Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social
Networking, vol 13, p 3). Dillon's team will soon publish a study
showing its effectiveness in drug and alcohol addiction.
What about the downsides of avatar therapy - doesn't it lack the
personal touch? "A real therapist dealing with a real person is more
likely to feel ethical responsibility and care for that patient," says
Christine Webber, a psychotherapist based in London.
The other major concern is the loss of body language. For people used
to Second Life, this is not as much of a problem as you might think,
according to Dillon. But as a therapist, I glean a great deal from
seeing someone become tearful or shift in their seat.
It's a trade-off, say avatar therapists. What you lose in body
language you gain in the eloquent expression of conscious thought - at
least for clients who type in their responses - as well as the loss of
inhibition that comes with communicating through an avatar.
For people seeking therapy online, there are practical concerns, too:
without visiting a real office with certificates on the wall, how can
they be sure the people offering treatment are bona fide therapists?
The Online Therapy Institute, a mental health training body in Second
Life, is pushing for professional standards to be agreed across this
emerging field. It offers a "Verified by" logo that therapists who
meet its standards can display on their websites. Because
confidentiality is paramount, one criterion is that sessions must take
place in digitally secure areas.
So are psychotherapists ready to leave some of their most basic tools
behind? "It's not for everyone," says Kelli Turgyan, a social worker
practising in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. "This type of therapy would
have to be done by the right type of therapist for the right type of
client." Because of the lack of face-to-face contact, only low-risk
clients should be taken on, and they must be willing to use local
emergency services if they hit a crisis, she says.
Despite the downsides, avatar therapy is gaining converts. There's no
official head count, but each month more and more therapists seem to
pop up in Second Life and other virtual worlds. A growing number of
journal papers and chapters in mental health textbooks are focusing on
avatar therapy too, say DeeAnna Merz Nagel and Kate Anthony,
co-founders of the Online Therapy Institute.
The field is still in its infancy and the technology is not without
its pitfalls, but this new form of therapy clearly holds promise.
However, until the day that I can log in and find myself with
sufficient hair, properly dressed, and less apt to inadvertently throw
myself at complete strangers, it's clear it still has a little way to
go. But avatar therapy is on the right track. You could say it's
virtually there.
Samantha Murphy is a counsellor and freelance writer based in Pennsylvania
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"Ethics" is simply a last-gasp attempt by deist conservatives and
orthodox dogmatics to keep humanity in ignorance and obscurantism,
through the well tried fermentation of fear, the fear of science and
new technologies.
There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history,
it is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations.
On the contrary, let us embrace Science and the new technologies
unfettered, for it is these which will liberate mankind from the
myth of god, and free us from our age old fears, from disease,
death and the sweat of labour.
Rael
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