Avatar Process Training Group
by Gerald R. Quimby, M.A.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- INTRODUCTION
- ABSTRACT
- BACKGROUND
- PROJECT BASICS
- MEMBER REQUIREMENTS
- SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS
- HARDWARE & SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS
- GROUP PLAN
- GROUP RULES
- THE MEETING SPACE
- DISCLAIMER
- SUMMARIES OF TRIAL RUNS
- THE FIRST ATTEMPT
- THE SECOND ATTEMPT
- THE FUTURE OF AVATAR TRAINING
This section provides some history regarding the formation of the Avatar Training Process group project and offers some insight into the need for such a group for mental health professionals.
The growing popularity of the Internet among the general public has opened up an exciting new avenue for the delivery of mental health services. Cybertherapy, Net Counseling, E-Therapy and a host of other terms are being coined to describe this new direction in mental health. Lured by the promise of a global client base, many mental health professionals are setting up web sites and virtual offices from which to practice. While most would agree that what they offer is not therapy, the debate over what constitutes therapy and the ethics of online service delivery continues. A common thread in the code of ethical conduct between psychologists and mental health counselors is that [practitioners] shall have training, experience and supervision in an area and ensure competence to protect others from harm
(American Psychological Association, 1997;
American Counseling Association, 1997).
Social workers have a similar call to become and remain proficient in professional practice.
(National Association for Social Workers California Chapter, 1997)
At the present time, no such training and supervision exists.
The Avatar Process Training Group, APT, is one of three online training groups being developed as a means of investigating the feasibility of providing training and supervision in online service delivery. The other two included a small, private email group, and a larger, listserv-based group. Both these groups were called NetPsy-EPT and NetPsy-LPT. The idea for these groups came about as a result of discussions held on the NetPsy listserv owned by Marlene Maheu Ph.D. who suggested and initially organized their development to explore online training possibilities.
The main objective of these groups is to provide a means of training mental health professionals in the dynamics of online services delivery by exposing them to the elements of online communication in a safe and supervised environment. Professionals can learn first hand of the problems that can be encountered online and gain experience as a group member and group leader under supervision. APT uses software that places group members in a three dimensional virtual reality world with avatars to represent them. This software allows for a wide range of emotional expression, movement, and realtime full duplex voice communications.
There is much debate on the professional listservs over how working with clients online is the same or different from live face-to-face encounters. Many cite the lack of visual and aural cues as being a detriment to the assessment and therapeutic process. As a step towards overcoming the missing aural component, it has been suggested that the use of Internet Phone technology be explored. This technology provides voice transmission through special voice compression software. Professional (corporate) versions of conferencing software can be quite expensive and are certainly out of practical reach of the general public to be viable. However, many vendors offer Internet conferencing software free of charge which provide many useful conferencing tools. While they permit multiple simultaneous users to hold textual chats and markup electronic white boards, they are limited to voice communication between only two people at a time. This may be sufficient for individual client contacts but certainly unsuitable for group work.
There is a software product which provides both the visual and auditory components missing from previous methods. The package named Traveler provides access to a three dimensional, virtual reality world. Users select an iconic representation of themselves, called an avatar, from a list containing people, animals, objects, or fantasy characters. Users may customize these avatars with color. To further augment the visual aspect of this medium, the avatars are able to display facial expressions depicting a neutral expression, happiness, sadness, anger, or surprise. These expressions can be changed at any time during the online conference. The graphic below is the Onlive! Traveler window which depicts an avatar I easily customized to closely resemble myself.
Example of an avatar as it floats in virtual reality space.
The auditory component is provided with stereo effects that allow the user to know which direction a sound is coming from. For example, a person on a user's right will be heard from the right speaker. In a crowded space, it can sound like a party with many conversations going on at once. The closer one is to the person speaking, the louder they will sound. Unlike the other Internet voice chat software, there is no apparent limit to the number of simultaneous speakers.
These features make the OnLive! Traveler software attractive for doing group work and opens avenues for distance learning for training a new breed of practitioners.
The Avatar Training Process using the Traveler software is an ongoing project. This section presents the fundemental details of the group and acts as the mechanism to provide informed consent to group participants.
- Member Requirements
- Hardware & Software Requirement
- Group Plan
- Basic Group Rules
- The Meeting Space
- Special Considerations
- Disclaimer
The group shall be composed of mental health professionals and graduate students. Each member must be willing to devote up to two hours a week for the duration of the group, typically five to eight weeks. Prior to the group's actual start, members are expected to participate in schedule planning to decide meeting days and times, exchange of phone numbers and make arrangements with a local mental health professional to cover personal safety issues. Members may be asked for written comments and/or questionaire at the halfway point and after group termination for the purposes of evaluating the medium's effectiveness.
Hardware & Software Requirements
There are specific hardware and software requirements that must be met for participation in this project. The software used, Onlive! Traveler version 2.02, is written for use with Microsoft Windows 95/NT only, sorry, no Macs. Also, the instructions used within the software for the voice compression will only work on PCs with a Pentium class processors. This means that your PC must be a step beyond a 486 processor regardless of how fast it is. Your PC must be equipped with a 16 bit or greater sound card, speakers and a microphone or headset. OnLive! lists the hardware requirements.
The first phase of the APT group will begin with a core of six members and a group leader. The group leader will have supervision. Each member will be required to download and install the Traveler software. Group members have the option of maintaining some anonymity as the software allows the user to select a name for the chosen avatar and the user profile information, if any, is whatever is entered by that user.
The APT group will be initially conducted in much the same fashion as a personal growth, encounter, or T-Group (Yalom, 1985). The group will meet for five weeks for 1.5 to 2 hours each weekly session. This time includes time set aside to process the evening's session and look at what has been learned.
The goal of this first phase is to gain experience in the conduct of a realtime online group of this type and explore its potential as a means of training mental health professionals in online therapeutic methods.
Phase two will explore the group as a means of mental health service delivery by conducting a group where members assume the role of a person suffering from a disorder of some kind. This group format can allow the exploration of various disorders to find which can be effectively dealt with online.
The APT group follows many of the standards of traditional face to face groups however due to the electronic nature of APT, the standard set of rules must be expanded slightly to cover other opportunities. The standard core rules involve the maintaining of confidentiality, group matters stay within the group, be polite and offer constructive criticism rather than put downs, don't interrupt. These rules must be extended due to the remote nature of the group membership.
The software allows for private text messages to be passed between two members. This is not allowed as it may promote subgrouping and interfere with the cohesion of the group. Also private communication via email or telephone during group meetings is not permitted. The aim is to keep the discussions within the group for the benefit of all the group members.
Other group rules and norms will be developed as the group organizes and progresses through various stages.
Within several virtual reality worlds available are user spaces where individuals can create their own space. Some of these spaces may be protected by password. The space selected for this project is such a space to protect against intrusion and the group members' confidentiality. In addition to the password protection to enter the space, individual members cannot be identified as the persons within the room are blocked from being displayed to anyone outside the protected user space.
View of the "lodge" as seen from the front looking toward the back.
The virtual realm selected as the meeting place depicts a lodge in the mountains. It is a wooden structure with a vaulted ceiling with windows high above bathing the interior space with sunlight. Windows also line the wall on one side of the lodge which reveals the green forest and underbrush in the foreground, purple mountains in the distance and a blue, partly cloudy sky. Inside this roomy space is a fireplace with triangular flames of red, orange and yellow. The sound of the crackling fire provides a cozy backdrop for conversation. The lodge has three levels with each level raised a few virtual feet above the other. A wooden railing surrounds the upper deck and down along the steps to the lower levels.
A consideration is group size. The software considers the proximity of people to one another in the determination of the volume level for each voice. For a group to be gathered in a circle, the more members in the group, the larger the circle. It is possible that people on opposite sides of the circle can not hear one another so a smaller circle is needed. An interesting feature of a 3D virtual reality world is that various configurations can be attempted such as members stacking themselves. Imagine a group of ten people with five people floating above the other five in a small circle. Perhaps a spherical pattern can be put together to make use of the space above and below the traditional circular pattern. Is this a solution for larger group sizes?
View of the "lodge" as seen from the back looking toward the front.
Time zones must be taken into consideration with any realtime gathering. Once reaching the three hour difference between New York and Los Angeles, some extra consideration has to be given. The New Yorker is home from work and has finished dinner while the Californian is at work saying "An hour till quitting time." Once the Californian is home and finished with dinner, the New Yorker is looking at bedtime coming up soon. It becomes a matter of who is willing to give up what for the group, work, dinner or sleep.
The focus of this group is not to do therapy but rather to develop personally and professionally. Even so, there may be a time when someone goes into a situation that cannot be left unattended. Therefore some emergency procedures will be necessary. Each member is to have someone locally that they can call upon should the need arise also, the group leader shall provide day and evening phone numbers.
Technology related problems are not uncommon as most Netizens can attest to. Internet users are at the mercy of telephone companies and Internet Service Providers and may at times have difficulty getting online. Members need to have a procedure to follow if this happens to them. This is especially important should the group leader be in this situation. The group members are also at risk of suffering hardware failures as a reason for not being able to find their way to the group.
Members of the group must be made aware of the experimental nature of this group and that there are many unknowns involved in the delivery of mental health services via the Internet. Every precaution is being taken to ensure that the safety and confidentiality of the group members is upheld. The inherent structure of the Internet makes it impossible to control many of the factors one may encounter during a group session. Participants enter into this group at their own risk and agree to hold harmless any sponsoring agency or individual. Members are free to drop from the group at anytime.
This section provides summary reports of the groups that have been run as well as provide progress reports on current group activities.
- The First Attempt - April 1997
- The Second Attempt - In Planning Stages
The first attempt was begun in mid April, 1997. Members were solicited from the NetPsy listserv. The group members were to create a distribution list containing all the member's email addresses and group communications began by e-mailing messages to the distribution. Initial group business was conducted in this way and was to continue until the group met at the virtual group site. That attempt was instrumental in pointing out several areas which needed to be addressed more closely for subsequent groups. Overall, there were two major problem areas; overcoming the technology and building group cohesion during the initial planning and scheduling phase of the group.
Fighting Technology
The software was easily installed however configuring it often posed a problem for some. The virtual reality site itself turned out to be quite troublesome as well. OnLive Technologies maintains several sites on their servers which are very heavily used. Consequently, connection to the servers could take several minutes to complete giving the impression that the PC has locked up triggering the user to initiate a reboot. Another consequence of the heavy use is the servers would often reset throwing everyone off unexpectedly. It must be stated here that these problems are not software problems but simply the result of overloaded servers. The technical staff suggested a couple of sites that could be used that were relatively unused. Due to the need to maintain confidentiality these sites were not suitable as they were open sites and not password protectable. Several members reported having difficulty with establishing their Internet connection at the appointed time.
Getting The Show On The Virtual Road
Due to the unprecedented nature of the project, it was decided that the group should start with only a few members then as more experience was gained more members could be added. A smaller group could better deal with any obstacles encountered along the way. There were many persons who requested to be a part of the group but had to drop out for various reasons such as improper hardware or operating system, conflicting commitments, and technically challenged among others. Once the number of members was reached, other requests were placed on a waiting list. Many of those on the list never responded when they were called to replace another who dropped out.
Since this was going to be done in realtime, the group membership had to be able to meet at a time which was convenient for all. In this situation having members in adjacent time zones clearly creates the least amount of conflict. The east coast/west coast time difference became an annoyance to be dealt with pointing out the importance of trying to stay within adjacent time zones. It was very difficult to reach a consensus on scheduling and rules and members stopped responding to the email so the group never actually materialized. It was apparent that there was a lot of frustration for many of those who participated in this attempt which no doubt led to their subsequent departure from the project.
Group cohesion never occured as members were unable to simultaneously meet. There was also very little e-mail traffic directed to the group as a whole despite the initial call for the creation of a distribution list of group members. Members did not or rarely interacted.
My thanks!
Finally, for those of you who were so brave and willing to participate in the great unknown, I give you my most sincere thanks for your efforts. Let's try this again soon.
The second attempt is currently in the planning stages. Keep watching for further developments.
The groups being conducted using the Traveler software is just one of many projects that will be undertaken in the months to come. Currently, another package is being evaluated for use and trial groups will be conducted with it as well. This will be an ongoing process of locating and evaluating applications that can be used to train mental health professionals to provide individual and group services online as well as provide direct training with specific applications.
Avatar training will help professionals to integrate their current face-to-face skills with the virtual world. For example, avatars have a way of making individual and group sessions more natural than typical textual chat or email methods. Advanced packages like the Traveler software also add the dimension of voice and facial expression to reflect mood. The ability to move about the room provides more clues to a person's state that might otherwise go undetected with conventional text only communication modes. A person's choice of a particular avatar may offer clues that can be therapeutically used. These are all areas to be explored by professionals and topics to be covered in future courses.
Ethical concerns must be addressed as most professional organizations begin to seriously look at the ethics of online service delivery. Patient/client safety and confidentiality are also matters for concern. Avatar training will go beyond the mechanics of using technology to provide services, ethics and competencies must play a major role in the overall training as well.
The Goals of Avatar Training:
- To provide the mental health community with the opportunity to get first hand experience with conducting online individual and group sessions in a safe and supervised environment
- Provide guidance for ethical practice online
- Advance the state-of-the-art of online mental health practice by developing online techniques and methods
- Assist in making online practice a viable adjunct to traditional face-to-face contact
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