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Counseling in the Twilight Zone
Counselling in the Twilight Zone
By
Gary Screaton Page, M.Ed., Ph.D.
© Copyright 2009 by Gary Screaton Page. All rights reserved.
Martha arrived at the office ten minutes late. Nervously she paused before entering. What would it be like? She had never been in counselling before, let alone in a group session. "I need to deal with this," she prodded herself, "If I don't do it now, then when?"
Taking the handle firmly in hand, she opened the door and went in. "Ah, Martha, welcome. Everyone, this is Martha. She's joining us today. Martha, please sit over there and make yourself comfortable."
Martha crossed the room and sat down opposite Sigmund the counsellor and leader of the group. His smile was friendly and inviting, and his white hair stood out among the rest whose hair was in every case darker. Martha's on the other hand was blond -- an indication of the youthful look she was trying to recapture as she approached her fortieth birthday. Looking around the room, the diversity among so few people surprised her. Besides Martha and Sigmund, there were only five others in the room yet each represented an ethnicity quite different from Martha's obvious European roots.
A more elderly Collette introduced herself first. She related that she was Congolese. Her brightly coloured outfit stood out among the more subdued garments warn by the others. Carlos spoke next, his Hispanic accent a clue to his Chilean origin. He came to the group to deal with the continuing stress he has experienced as a refugee from the conflict in his homeland several years earlier. Ermanie quickly followed. She spoke softly, even sounded intimidated, and revealed nothing about her background. "Hi, Martha; I'm Ermanie," is all she said.
Marie was the last to speak. Her family were from the Philippines although she was born and raised in Canada. "Pleased to meet you, Martha," she said smilingly.
"Ah," you're thinking, "that's only five people besides Martha. Weren't there seven in the room?" Bruce Wayne, as Martha later found he called himself, sat silent and uninvolved. Wearing a Batman costume, he looked to Martha like he belonged in an asylum not in a group counselling session. Even stranger, Martha thought, was the fact that everyone else, except her, seemed oblivious to Bruce's comic book outfit. It was as if he wasn't wearing anything out of the ordinary. Indeed, except for that fact that she could see him, it was as if he wasn't there at all!
"Well, I think we should get started," said Sigmund. As counsellor, he focused on their reasons for being there and that time was pressing on. They were already running behind since Martha joined them several minutes into the scheduled session. "Martha, since you are just joining us, please tell us what brings you here."
Martha took a deep breath, paused to collect her thoughts and carefully choose her words. "Me and my husband have split up. He's an alcoholic and two months ago, when he got really drunk, he beat me up. The neighbours heard us fighting and called the police. They came and arrested him and took me to the hospital." Tears quickly filled her eyes, as Martha was surprisingly candid about her situation. All the remaining eyes in the room focused attentively on her as she related how she and her husband met and how he began drinking heavily after losing his job nearly two years ago. He resented her being the only one working and bringing in money for the family. They had a son and a daughter neither of which had started school yet and she was having trouble managing them on her own.
"Martha," Sigmund responded supportively, "you've had a very difficult time. What do you hope will happen in these sessions? Your separation and your husband's abuse have ...."
"CRACK!"
Just as Sigmund sought to help Martha clarify her goals in the group, a deafening clap of thunder broke the calm of the session. An almost blinding flash of lightning brightened the room where Martha had been sitting at her desk. The computer in front of her suddenly went blank as the power to the house went off bringing Martha's cybercounselling session to an abrupt end.
This scenario is rapidly become a reality that could dramatically change how's and the when's of counselling. Technology-based counselling and cybercounselling in particular, are already realities. With the development of widely available and increasingly inexpensive, PC graphic photorealism, technicians can create avatars -- having the same on-screen physical appearance of real human beings -- to mimic their full-bodied human counterparts.
Along with the use of natural language scripts, providing mental health information services that create realistic question and answer sessions that appear to be dialogues between two or more people, avatars can combine "the positive 'distancing' aspects of the client-counsellor counselees seek." At the same time, they can also provide easy access to an online therapist to facilitate "a more open therapeutic relationship, working towards the client's mental well being while bypassing the usual constraints of a face-to-face relationship (physical bias or having to look someone in the eye while revealing sensitive material)."
Avatars allow individual counselees, or even groups of clients, from anywhere in the world, to meet in a cyberspace counselling session with complete anonymity and genuine physical safety. Able to represent their human counterparts realistically in speech, body language, emotional tones, and in a way that counselees choose to represent themselves, avatars allow counselling clients to distance themselves from the harshness of their medical and/or emotional condition.
Remote clients and counsellors could control their respective avatars (once created) in online counselling sessions speaking and acting through their avatars in real time! With an appropriate database and the use of natural language engines that not only understand the individual words provided by client and counsellor -- spoken or written -- but also understand the context, relationship, and implication of those words placed in their particular order, such cybercounselling could become a reality in the not too distant future. The technology is already here that can dynamically update what the avatars learn about each other.
Taking Martha's situation as an example, Sigmund's avatar -- had the lightning strike not stopped him in its tracks on Martha's computer -- might well have continued responding to her tearful revelation about her husband's abuse and their current separation with "Your separation and your husband's abuse have deeply hurt you. Is that right?" While this example may be too simplistic and may even miss the mark in actuality, as an illustration it nevertheless serves to demonstrate the possibilities of avatar-assisted cybercounselling.
The potential for such counselling is real. The ability to visualize the process on screen from a third person perspective increases the therapeutic potential and opens even more possibilities for the training of counsellors. Not only can a therapist counsel one or more clients in a virtual environment controlled in real time by clients and counsellor in their remote settings, their interactions can include a mix of methods: text chat, voice conferencing, and animation. What is more, counselling trainers and supervisors can observe these cyber sessions and not part of the session itself. Doing so would be like looking through a one-way mirror in cyberspace.
Cybercounselling need not be limited to e-mail, asynchronistic, text-based dialogue. Technology is evolving that can create avatars and counselling environments that therapists and clients can use in real-time sessions. The virtual environment provides the setting in which sessions take place, and while most will, they do not need to emulate the real world. Rather, developers could readily tailor them to the needs of the clients or to the therapeutic goals for their clients as determined by the counsellors. Where useful, therapists could encourage clients to control not only their environments, but also the very characteristics of their avatars and thus reveal important clinical information to the counsellor, which information could prove invaluable in assessing client needs and the formation of therapy plans to meet them.
Imagine, helping a clients relax by using a familiar location such as a sandy beach or enabling them to re-live experiences which they could manipulate to change their emotional experience of them. Clients could even choose the characteristics of their counsellor from a variety of avatars that they might relate better to according to gender, color, and appeal.
Cybercounselling appears to be here to stay. Since 1999, when OnlineCounsellors.co.uk [in which I have no financial or any other stake I hasten to add at this point, fearing you might think me opportunistic] began offering IT in Therapy workshops, they opened the door to the possible in Internet and other distance counselling. Now, the possible includes not only the use of multi-media, self-instructional learning systems: text, as well as audio-video CDs and DVDs that make use of both avatars, natural language scripts, and self-adjusting data bases that facilitate client-counsellor interactions in real-time, but also pave the way for real-time cybercounselling without real-life counsellors.
Who knows, with future developments in technology, improving data base management, and the increasing sophistication of animation and natural language engines, "real" counsellors may become an anachronism. Avatar Smith may replace counsellor Sigmund as the client's choice of therapist. Avatar Smith may even prove more responsive to clients' real needs.
Wow! Now that's something to think about isn't it?
By
Gary Screaton Page, M.Ed., Ph.D.
© Copyright 2009 by Gary Screaton Page. All rights reserved.
Martha arrived at the office ten minutes late. Nervously she paused before entering. What would it be like? She had never been in counselling before, let alone in a group session. "I need to deal with this," she prodded herself, "If I don't do it now, then when?"
Taking the handle firmly in hand, she opened the door and went in. "Ah, Martha, welcome. Everyone, this is Martha. She's joining us today. Martha, please sit over there and make yourself comfortable."
Martha crossed the room and sat down opposite Sigmund the counsellor and leader of the group. His smile was friendly and inviting, and his white hair stood out among the rest whose hair was in every case darker. Martha's on the other hand was blond -- an indication of the youthful look she was trying to recapture as she approached her fortieth birthday. Looking around the room, the diversity among so few people surprised her. Besides Martha and Sigmund, there were only five others in the room yet each represented an ethnicity quite different from Martha's obvious European roots.
A more elderly Collette introduced herself first. She related that she was Congolese. Her brightly coloured outfit stood out among the more subdued garments warn by the others. Carlos spoke next, his Hispanic accent a clue to his Chilean origin. He came to the group to deal with the continuing stress he has experienced as a refugee from the conflict in his homeland several years earlier. Ermanie quickly followed. She spoke softly, even sounded intimidated, and revealed nothing about her background. "Hi, Martha; I'm Ermanie," is all she said.
Marie was the last to speak. Her family were from the Philippines although she was born and raised in Canada. "Pleased to meet you, Martha," she said smilingly.
"Ah," you're thinking, "that's only five people besides Martha. Weren't there seven in the room?" Bruce Wayne, as Martha later found he called himself, sat silent and uninvolved. Wearing a Batman costume, he looked to Martha like he belonged in an asylum not in a group counselling session. Even stranger, Martha thought, was the fact that everyone else, except her, seemed oblivious to Bruce's comic book outfit. It was as if he wasn't wearing anything out of the ordinary. Indeed, except for that fact that she could see him, it was as if he wasn't there at all!
"Well, I think we should get started," said Sigmund. As counsellor, he focused on their reasons for being there and that time was pressing on. They were already running behind since Martha joined them several minutes into the scheduled session. "Martha, since you are just joining us, please tell us what brings you here."
Martha took a deep breath, paused to collect her thoughts and carefully choose her words. "Me and my husband have split up. He's an alcoholic and two months ago, when he got really drunk, he beat me up. The neighbours heard us fighting and called the police. They came and arrested him and took me to the hospital." Tears quickly filled her eyes, as Martha was surprisingly candid about her situation. All the remaining eyes in the room focused attentively on her as she related how she and her husband met and how he began drinking heavily after losing his job nearly two years ago. He resented her being the only one working and bringing in money for the family. They had a son and a daughter neither of which had started school yet and she was having trouble managing them on her own.
"Martha," Sigmund responded supportively, "you've had a very difficult time. What do you hope will happen in these sessions? Your separation and your husband's abuse have ...."
"CRACK!"
Just as Sigmund sought to help Martha clarify her goals in the group, a deafening clap of thunder broke the calm of the session. An almost blinding flash of lightning brightened the room where Martha had been sitting at her desk. The computer in front of her suddenly went blank as the power to the house went off bringing Martha's cybercounselling session to an abrupt end.
This scenario is rapidly become a reality that could dramatically change how's and the when's of counselling. Technology-based counselling and cybercounselling in particular, are already realities. With the development of widely available and increasingly inexpensive, PC graphic photorealism, technicians can create avatars -- having the same on-screen physical appearance of real human beings -- to mimic their full-bodied human counterparts.
Along with the use of natural language scripts, providing mental health information services that create realistic question and answer sessions that appear to be dialogues between two or more people, avatars can combine "the positive 'distancing' aspects of the client-counsellor counselees seek." At the same time, they can also provide easy access to an online therapist to facilitate "a more open therapeutic relationship, working towards the client's mental well being while bypassing the usual constraints of a face-to-face relationship (physical bias or having to look someone in the eye while revealing sensitive material)."
Avatars allow individual counselees, or even groups of clients, from anywhere in the world, to meet in a cyberspace counselling session with complete anonymity and genuine physical safety. Able to represent their human counterparts realistically in speech, body language, emotional tones, and in a way that counselees choose to represent themselves, avatars allow counselling clients to distance themselves from the harshness of their medical and/or emotional condition.
Remote clients and counsellors could control their respective avatars (once created) in online counselling sessions speaking and acting through their avatars in real time! With an appropriate database and the use of natural language engines that not only understand the individual words provided by client and counsellor -- spoken or written -- but also understand the context, relationship, and implication of those words placed in their particular order, such cybercounselling could become a reality in the not too distant future. The technology is already here that can dynamically update what the avatars learn about each other.
Taking Martha's situation as an example, Sigmund's avatar -- had the lightning strike not stopped him in its tracks on Martha's computer -- might well have continued responding to her tearful revelation about her husband's abuse and their current separation with "Your separation and your husband's abuse have deeply hurt you. Is that right?" While this example may be too simplistic and may even miss the mark in actuality, as an illustration it nevertheless serves to demonstrate the possibilities of avatar-assisted cybercounselling.
The potential for such counselling is real. The ability to visualize the process on screen from a third person perspective increases the therapeutic potential and opens even more possibilities for the training of counsellors. Not only can a therapist counsel one or more clients in a virtual environment controlled in real time by clients and counsellor in their remote settings, their interactions can include a mix of methods: text chat, voice conferencing, and animation. What is more, counselling trainers and supervisors can observe these cyber sessions and not part of the session itself. Doing so would be like looking through a one-way mirror in cyberspace.
Cybercounselling need not be limited to e-mail, asynchronistic, text-based dialogue. Technology is evolving that can create avatars and counselling environments that therapists and clients can use in real-time sessions. The virtual environment provides the setting in which sessions take place, and while most will, they do not need to emulate the real world. Rather, developers could readily tailor them to the needs of the clients or to the therapeutic goals for their clients as determined by the counsellors. Where useful, therapists could encourage clients to control not only their environments, but also the very characteristics of their avatars and thus reveal important clinical information to the counsellor, which information could prove invaluable in assessing client needs and the formation of therapy plans to meet them.
Imagine, helping a clients relax by using a familiar location such as a sandy beach or enabling them to re-live experiences which they could manipulate to change their emotional experience of them. Clients could even choose the characteristics of their counsellor from a variety of avatars that they might relate better to according to gender, color, and appeal.
Cybercounselling appears to be here to stay. Since 1999, when OnlineCounsellors.co.uk [in which I have no financial or any other stake I hasten to add at this point, fearing you might think me opportunistic] began offering IT in Therapy workshops, they opened the door to the possible in Internet and other distance counselling. Now, the possible includes not only the use of multi-media, self-instructional learning systems: text, as well as audio-video CDs and DVDs that make use of both avatars, natural language scripts, and self-adjusting data bases that facilitate client-counsellor interactions in real-time, but also pave the way for real-time cybercounselling without real-life counsellors.
Who knows, with future developments in technology, improving data base management, and the increasing sophistication of animation and natural language engines, "real" counsellors may become an anachronism. Avatar Smith may replace counsellor Sigmund as the client's choice of therapist. Avatar Smith may even prove more responsive to clients' real needs.
Wow! Now that's something to think about isn't it?
Comment
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Comment by Gary Screaton Page, M.Ed., Ph.D. on November 10, 2009 at 9:53pm -
Kate
Your paper was one that prompted me to muse about the possibilities. I found your work thought provoking and appreciate the contribution it makes to the literature. Peace. Thanks for your kid words.
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Comment by Kate Anthony on November 10, 2009 at 10:01am - Excellent blog, Gary - thank you. Don't forget you can download my white paper on Avatar Therapy (Anthony & Lawson, 2002) at http://www.kateanthony.co.uk/index.php?MenuOption=Research . Enjoy!
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