Psychotherapy Online

I have been full up in my practice for a long time. A lot of f2f clients, a lot of clients online and also some personal commitments. The latter two have eased off and I can now take on some more clients. I have taken the “full up” notice of my website and it will be interesting to see how long it takes before it is back up!

I love doing psychotherapy online. I know that it has a potential for depth and healing. I don’t think it is useful to compare it to f2f work. I have had some clients who prefer it, others who do both, and some who have come because of geographical isolation or for financial reasons ($NZ is more affordable than $US). I know it works and I love doing it, but it does not replace my f2f work. I can only do about a quarter of my case load online. I need time away from the computer, and spend a lot of time there already!

The other thing I love about doing psychotherapy online is that it is an exploration of the psyche. How does medium affect the work? I have learnt a lot about that over the years and I have some surprising insights. They surprised me.

tags: psyber empathy virtuality psyberspace cyberspace waltzzz psychotherapy psyche

Network structure alone is not everything

A while back I participated in some sort of “six degrees” type research. I forget what I had to do or what I did. I was not really involved, my heart was not in it even though I am very interested in the psyche of social networks. The results are summed up here: An Experimental Study of Search in Global Social Networks — Dodds et al. 301 (5634): 827 — Science:

Our results therefore suggest that if individuals searching for remote targets do not have sufficient incentives to proceed, the small-world hypothesis will not appear to hold (13), but that even a slight increase in incentives can render social searches successful under broad conditions. More generally, the experimental approach adopted here suggests that empirically observed network structure can only be meaningfully interpreted in light of the actions, strategies, and even perceptions of the individuals embedded in the network: Network structure alone is not everything.

I think it is a good result. It simply points to the fogotten Sociometry of J.L. Moreno, proving his point: incentives, motivation, participation are important! Here are Moreno’s criteria for good sociometry, which I have summarised in an article I am writing and which will put on the net soon.

1. Participants are informed, ready, willing and able to participate.
2. Participants in the group are “researchers”, and the leader is also a participant.
3. Participation is done in action. Learning is experiential, it is learning by doing.
4. There is acknowledgment of the difference between process dynamics and the manifest content. To quote Moreno: “there is a deep discrepancy between the official and the secret behaviour of members”. (1951:39) Moreno advocates that before any “social program” can be proposed, the director has to “take into account the actual constitution of the group.” (ibid)
5. Rule of adequate motivation: “Every participant should feel about the experiment that it is in his (or her) own cause . . . that it is an opportunity for him (or her) to become an active agent in matters concerning his (or her) life situation.” (ibid)
6. Rule of “gradual” inclusion of all extraneous criteria. Moreno speaks here of “the slow dialectic process of the sociometric experiment”.

References are to: Moreno, J. L., 1951, Sociometry, Experimental Method and the Science of Society . Beacon House, Beacon, New York. Page 31

tags: psyber networks