CCarvalho - Presentation - A theoretical inquiry into the role of enaction in Cybertherapy. PPT print (2015). (original) (raw)
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CCarvalho - A theoretical inquiry into the role of enaction in Cybertherapy ACM (2015).
Some of the problems faced by Cybertherapy along the last two decades are far from being restricted to technical issues. They entail new challenges of medical education, mainly related with the adequate insertion of new technologies in therapeutic processes without distorting the relation between medical professionals and clients. We contend that the acknowledgment of the effects of the systemic effects of therapeutic applications of virtual reality is not fully predictable and can only be achieved attending to the way the patient enacts certain tasks oriented by goals. Enaction means the patient is placed at the centre of the treatment processes, not only as an informed agent, but also as the agent of change through practice. Focusing on the requirements of Cybertherapy applied to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, we propose a theoretic reflection on the conditions of training and treatment in virtual settings. We underline the decisive role of Health Care professionals in applying and improving the potentialities of biometric sensors, graphic and aural engines in virtual (and hybrid) settings. This role can only be adequately understood within a framework of different levels of recursion of the therapeutic system. Two main levels are referred, the first encompassing the patients adaptation and learning to " move within " the interfaces, the second requiring a reflection on the architecture and design of the physical setting and the computerized rendering of sensory data. Further levels concern the larger framework of therapy, relating to its allocation of resources and the social ends that therapeutic technologies, particularly those concerning mental health, must accomplish.
CCarvalho - Enactment as a central category of Cybertherapy (2015).
In Cybertherapy [CT] exclusion can be considered both as a socially constructed inaccessibility (due to various factors: political, economic or cultural) and as an individual condition (relative to individual skills and confidence). The specificity of individual illness or trouble guides the particular treatment available and the sensory and cognitive channels of interaction and intervention. A key role is played by adaptive learning to a new technology of communication or immersion which, in some cases can be seen, right from the beginning, not simply as a perfunctory task but as a part of the of psychotherapy itself. Regarding this feature, we will try to understand if in psychotherapeutic setting the concept of presence can/must aim to " obliterate " mediation, or, conceived as deflationary, acknowledge the specificity and advantages of the medium itself (Riva 2008). Supported on an extensive review of recent literature, both empirical and theoretical, our inquiry tries to demonstrate that the particular enaction of patients/clients is the link between the efforts of design and creation of apparatus, and their uses, adaptation and control by therapists. The categories of patient's presence and enaction provide both the feedback necessary for technical improvement of tools and the adaptation of the therapeutic setup, relying on the notions of anticipatory behavior and recursive control (dynamically relating optimized and breakdown experiences). Concerning another theme debated in the present congress, we see that the evolution of the perception, use and acceptance of CT (and varieties of E-Health) among communities of practitioners (psychotherapists, psychiatrists and psychologists) has a pattern of dissemination (and resistances) with similarities with E-learning. At first, both of these ICTs were frequently perceived as fallback solutions (due to geographical or economic constraints) and only gradually-with technical development, new sociocultural demands and professional adaptation-were they recognized as having potential and valences of their own. Today, each of these domains is developing autonomous resources no longer restricted to a supplementary role and addressing specific problems and challenges putting the notion of an enacting individual, developing competences in optimized media and environments, at the center of their processes.
Cybertherapy 2005: A Decade of VR
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Embodied Cognition and Body Psychotherapy: the Construction of New Therapeutic Environments.
New approaches in the philosophy of mind defend the idea that basic cognition and human intersubjectivity are deeply and inextricably embodied and environmentally embedded (Gallagher, 2009a and 2013; Gallagher & Hutto, 2008; Hutto, 2008a&b, 2009; 2011; 2012; 2013; Hutto and Myin, 2013). Taking these ideas seriously in the context of therapy directs us to pay more attention to the way therapy can be enhanced by modifying environmental and social affordances. The conceptual and methodological paradigms emerging from radically embodied/enactive cognition (REC) lend themselves to different applications such as reformulating the theoretical foundation and underpinning of practice and development in body psychotherapy (e.g. Geuter, in press). Supported by a new emerging evidence base regarding its effectiveness in the treatment of severe and chronic/enduring mental health problems (e.g. Röhricht, 2009; Röhricht & Priebe, 2006 Röhricht et al., 2013) body psychotherapy intervention strategies in turn are increasingly recognised as an area of applied embodied cognition. In this paper we explore body psychotherapy practice against a framework of REC; we will then explore new ways of practicing therapeutic embodied engagement, providing more flexibility to the therapist whilst venturing into the everyday life of their patients and their interactions with significant others. This includes discussing a revised version of encounter groups and “marathon” workshops as well as experimental solutions such as to construct a clinic that includes virtual features of the sort that one finds in “Virtual Reality” cave environments. In this model the clinic could become a virtual model of the patient's workplace or home and the construction of such virtual environments in a clinical setting could introduce novel (more thoroughly embodied/enactive and environmentally informed) aspects to the therapeutic process.
Emerging trends in CyberTherapy. Introduction to the special issue
2006
ABSTRACT According to the recent reports presented by IST Advisory Group (ISTAG) the evolutionary technology scenarios in support of the Knowledge Society of the 2010s will be rooted within three dominant trends:(a) Ambient Intelligence, the pervasive diffusion of intelligence in the space around us;(b) B3G," Beyond 3rd Generation" mobile communication system;(c) Shared Virtual Reality, with the increase of the range, accessibility and comprehensiveness of communications.
Foundations of Science
The author of this paper discusses the theme of the "simulated body", that is the sense of "being there” in a body that is not one's own, or that does not exist in the way one perceives it. He addresses this issue by comparing Immersive Virtual Reality technology, the phenomenological approach, and Gerald Edelman's theory of Neural Darwinism. Virtual Reality has been used to throw light on some phenomena that cannot be studied experimentally in real life, and the results of its simulations enrich the phenomenological discourse on the lived body. Virtual “Reality” seems to replicate—at least in part—the simulation mechanisms of our mind, thus favoring developments in the field of philosophy of mind.
A healthy mind in a healthy virtual body: The future of virtual reality in health care
2017
The increasing interest of neuroscience, cognitive science and social psychology towards the study of the body experience is providing a more comprehensive framework for the Bodily Self Consciousness (BSC), namely the experience of being in a body. In particular, it suggests that BSC is the outcome of the “body matrix” a supramodal multi-sensory representation of the body and the space around it which provides predictions about the expected sensory input and tries to minimize the amount of free energy (or ‘surprise’). The contents of the body matrix are modified by bottom-up prediction errors that signal mismatches between predicted and actual content of the different body representations. In this view, damage, malfunctioning, or altered feedback from and toward the body matrix might be involved in the aetiology of different clinical disturbances: from neurological disorders, such as chronic pain and neglect to psychiatric disorders, such as depression, schizophrenia, eating and wei...
Virtual Embodiment, Or: When I Enter Cyberspace, What Body Will I Inhabit?
Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, 2023
The following paper attempts to look at virtual reality technologies—and the (dis)embodiment affected by them—through a phenomenological lens. Specifically, augmenting traditional discussions of virtual reality as a purely technical problem, this paper seeks to bring Maurice Merleau-Ponty's embodied phenomenology into the discussion to try to make sense of both what body we leave behind and what body we gain as we enter virtual worlds. To do this, I look both at historical examples of virtual reality technologies and their methods of (dis)integrating the body and speculative future examples of virtual reality where the corporeal body is fully sidelined through the lens of Merleau-Ponty's account of the body schema, noting that habituation is an ever present factor that must be considered in virtual environments. Ultimately, I conclude that even in a scenario of one-to-one mind-computer transference, the virtual world will, like the physical world we currently inhabit, solicit a 'phantom body' thus forcing us to act and live in accordance with a mutual interplay between self and virtual world.