Episode 37 Of The Drax Files Radio Hour has a main feature this week regarding virtual therapy with an interview with Dr Tammy Fletcher. There’s also discussion of some hot topics such as Innsmouth,
However the episode opens with an excellent interview with Jeska Dzwigalski (AKA Jeska Linden), regarding the late Joe Miller with whom Jeska was a work colleague. Jeska talks of the introduction of voice in Second Life as well as talking about how passionate Joe was about Second Life. This is an excellent perspective of the contribution Joe made to Second Life and is well worth listening to. Jeska left Linden Lab quite a while ago now but she’s still a well known and liked name. She also runs a pretty cool site : Geeks With Drinks. Jeska earns extra kudos for knowing the difference between Whisky and Whiskey.
The episode also touch upon a subject close to my heart, Facebook’s absurd real names policy. This time they are mainly talking about drag Queens petitioning Facebook to change their real name policy and allow people to use stage names. Facebook’s real name policy is simply absurd, a name people known as is a far better policy. I’m tired of trying to encourage Linden Lab to embrace Google + now that they allow people to use any name they want to. Facebook has reach, Google + currently has far better ethics in this area.
They talk about many more issues including the High Fidelity Alpha users and a revelation that Draxtor Despres may well be entering High Fidelity for a special broadcast, with a special Draxtor Despres avatar. I hope they realise the perils Of Draxtor’s long hair! This may be more challenging than Rock, Paper, Scissors which they have been having fun with over at High Fidelity.
However the main feature is a fascinating interview with Dr Tammy Fletcher. Dr Fletcher talks about therapy within Second Life. This is a fascinating interview because a lot of people will think that any sort of therapy within Second Life will be artificial, ran by charlatans and not worthwhile.
Yet Dr Fletcher explains not only how therapy in Second Life can be useful and valid, she also explains why Second Life can highlight issues that are specific to spending too much time in Second Life, or using alts, or associated drama and how these are real and not virtual issues.
Dr Fletcher also talks of how furries can offer a lot of insight into who they are by the way they present themselves. However on a more important level Dr Fletcher highlights the issue of how a virtual world can help people who really could do with therapy find therapy. These people may not know that therapy is available to them locally or they may feel isolated but need therapy.
The important thing to remember here is that Dr Fletcher is a licensed marriage and family counsellor. She talks of how the very serious issues of people who suicidal or threatening self harm do indeed happen and how she has a duty to react to that, even though that’s not her area of therapy. This also raises the issue of whether people should be able to advertise themselves as therapists when they have no qualifications in a virtual world. This would be severely frowned upon outside of the virtual world, but within a virtual world, people don’t seem to consider it as a serious issue whereas in all reality, it is.
This is a very serious subject matter and is well worth listening to, it highlights the positives and negatives of virtual therapy and definitely raises an excellent point in terms of people really needing to be verified before offering such services.
I’m also impressed that Dr Fletcher said with regards to Second Life “The rent is too high“. However obviously she meant “The Tier is Too Damn High“. Seriously, support groups and communities are an excellent use case that gets stifled time and time and time again because the tier is too damn high! I should add at this point that Dr Fletcher is a massive fan of Second Life, believes in Second Life and is very grateful to Linden Lab for providing this platform.
Jo also brings up the sad news about Innsmouth, which I’ve covered recently. On that point let me just highlight the Innsmouth Preservation Society who are trying to save the sim. Arik Metzger posted this:
Announcing the formation of the Innsmouth Preservation Society. The group, formed the same day as Darmy’s announcement, has been avidly campaigning with a pledge program and plans for securing Innsmouth and maintaining, revitalizing and upgrading the sim to its glory in more active days. For more information, contact Arik Metzger (arikthered). Town Meetings are in the works, and Darmy is working with us to see this project come through in order to preserve this distinct Second Life landmark and monument to HP Lovecraft!
This is another excellent show and highlights so many issues, Draxtor manages to pack a lot into the hour and is very well assisted by Jo Yardley.