Online presence

I was reading Protoruru‘s posting on presence and not knowing what one’s identity is on-line and thought, heck I’ve been spending so much time on-line lately it’s hard to know what my identity is offline.

I ran group tonight and had the experience of feeling pressure from a group member to fulfill a need and this affirmed for me how we can experience similar issues on-line as off. The great part of on-line work is that extra breathing space. The chance to say to a co-facilitator “shit, I don’t know where I’m going here”

But is that pause OK?

In f2f groups there is no pause ( saying that in solution focus therapy they have a whole reflecting team and part of the session is dedicated to pondering) .

Tonight I felt like it was a cop out. That’s about my continued process of getting used to this way of working. Actually it’s OK to reflect, people will come alone for a mo. But then is it a mixing of communication timing…can we handle synchronous and asynchronous in the same group?

On presentation

I’m finding it interesting thinking about the different ways that we can present online. It assumes a sense of importance. One must present authentically but, as it was pointed out to me today….does it matter? We all choose to present ourselves in various guises throughout the day whether online or not. All are authentic. I don’t buy the idea of different selves: we are a sum of many many parts.

In relationship to therapy i htink that there might be some fear attached to engaging these lesser seen elements of our personality. A sense that there is “something wrong with me”. As a counsellor and as someone learning more about online presence it’s important to normalise this. We all have these fears, we all worry about authenticity and being good enough. These experiences do not point to some greater psychopathology.

Next relocating post on online substance use treatment

From Blogger: Response and responsibility

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

I have been thinking recently about how online group treatment works. Or in particular the type of treatment that I am involved in.
I’m lucky enough to be using video conferencing software which means that I can communicate with participants in real-time. This moderates for some of the effects of the online dishibition effect http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/disinhibit.html
The disinhibtion effect refers to the tendency for some people to present differently to how they would in a face to face situation, due to the absence of obvious consequences and reactions.
Using video conferencing means that participants can see a visual response to the words that they say as well as hearing different intonation and rate of speech. This encourages people to me more authentic, or at least as authentic as they would be in a face to face group.