agoraphobia
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‘The Agoraphobic Traveller’ confronts anxiety with Google Street View
Flying is Jacqui Kenny's worst fear. Two months ago, the London-based New Zealander learned she would have to travel to New York for the first exhibition of her photography. She hadn't traveled to the city in a decade, and the mental preparation began immediately. She visualized every step of the journey: Boarding at the gate, hearing the plane engine rumble, watching passengers stuff luggage into overhead lockers, the taxi, the takeoff. "If I don't visualize the next step, it feels too surreal," she said. "I feel like it's not really happening, and that is anxiety inducing." Kenny has agoraphobia, an anxiety disorder that, for her, means an irrational fear of busy, public areas and distance from safe spaces. A condition affecting 1.8 million Americans, it leads Kenny to fear losing control, which can spiral into imagining worst-case scenarios. "On a really bad day, even walking to the back aisles of my local supermarket is really difficult," she said. "I think I'm going to have a full-blown panic attack and fall over and shelves are going to go falling. I might hurt somebody; I'll embarrass myself."
Second Life isn't just fun, it's therapeutic
Man, talk about the feel-good story of the year. Here's a refreshing article on how Second Life is being used by various people as a therapeutic tool to combat various illnesses and conditions, including stroke recovery, agoraphobia, and what sounds like Asperger Syndrome.Part of the underlying mechanisms at work here is the ability to safely interact with other residents anonymously, or being able to roleplay frightening situations safely. From the article: "Because the full-color, multifaceted nature of the experience offers so much more "emotional bandwidth" than traditional Web sites, e-mail lists and discussion groups, users say the experience can feel astonishingly real." And when the experience centers on more than just combat, this could be said of more virtual worlds than just SL -- I'm sure there are incidences of these sorts of benefits in World of Warcraft and Everquest, as well. It's time for the World Health Organization to take a serious look at the health-improving benefits of virtual worlds, and what it means to the millions of citizens worldwide.[Via Nashua Telegraph]
