I have been an SL resident for nine months now. In that time I’ve become aware of some of the emotional conflicts that can arise for residents. These can be negotiating the demands of both RL and SL on our time or, more commonly, trying to navigate between the strong emotional ties formed in SL and our RL commitments and expectations.Having juggled these demands myself, at times I have felt isolated. Who can one talk to about these conflicts? It seems unfair to burden SL friends overly with problems. But who in RL who doesn’t play this ‘game’, would understand just how real these emotional dilemmas are?
SL’s Jack Leisen , a counsellor in RL, has had his practice inworld for about a year now. The counselling rooms in his SL practice in Nefetiti are serene spaces: large windows give an uninterrupted sea view and the sounds of breaking waves form a peaceful backdrop to our conversation.
We talk easily about the variety of motivations that bring people into Second Life. The game’s lack of a specific end goal mirrors RL. Therefore, just as in RL, each resident has to decide on some level what he or she intends to get out of the experience. We both marvel over residents’ ability in SL to form those deep emotional ties so very quickly. Jack credits this to the ‘disinhibition effect’: RL social barriers are removed and we are in control of how much we show or hide of ourselves, so we feel less inhibited in showing and sharing our emotional responses.
Of course, the lack of RL information about our SL friends allows us to fill in the gaps about them in a way that we want…so often we see the person that we want to see. We also tend to see each other at their best and that can accelerate relationships hugely. So when SL relationships sour, perhaps when we realise that we have made mistakes in assuming too much about each other, we can experience very real feelings of loss and confusion. And it might not end there for us. “When the loss of an SL relationship occurs,” Jack explains, “it can be a dramatic and significant loss in an individual’s life which can often trigger other issues within ourselves, whether it is something that we are currently struggling with, or a difficulty that has been long buried.”
So clients may use counselling for addressing SL-specific issues. Or they may already be using Second Life itself as a stepping stone to addressing issues that are uncomfortable in an RL identity. “I think another opportunity in here is that people come in avatars that may represent parts of themselves that may not be available to them or the people around them in RL, " says Jack. "It’s possible that people in RL find parts of their identities too traumatic to bring to RL and maybe SL might offer a different kind of environment that opens up that possibility."
We can log on to Second Life to escape from RL for a while or we can log on to help us face it. And possibly we log on to find ourselves. Whatever the motivation for seeking counselling might be, it is comforting to know that problems here don’t have to be tackled alone.
Jack Leisen can be found in 'Search' or you may wish to visit his inworld offices here for further information on counselling in both worlds.
