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Therapists signing up on WoW

Therapists signing up on WoW
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Addiction therapists signing up to World of Warcraft

Medical staff are creating their own ‘avatars’ in online fantasy games such as World of Warcraft in the hope of treating youngsters addicted to virtual worlds.

By Claudine Beaumont
24 Jul 2009

Addiction therapists plan to sign up to World of Warcraft in a bid to help youngsters who are spending too much time playing the game, sometimes to the detriment of their social lives and education Experts have said that some massively multiplayer online games, in which players battle enemies for weapons and rewards, are as addictive as crack cocaine.

Dr Richard Graham, a consultant psychiatrist at the Tavistock Centre in London, is so concerned that he plans to provide online therapy for youngsters who are spending so much time playing these games that they have lost touch with the real world.

A recent report by Sweden’s Youth Care Foundation described World of Warcraft as “more addictive than crack cocaine”. The game, which attracts almost 12 million players every month, is set in a fantasy environment, with users taking on the characters of dwarves, elves and wizards, interacting with other players throughout the virtual world.

Dr Graham said that some players were so addicted to these massively multiplayer online games that they played them for up to 16 hours a day, leading them to neglect their social lives and education.

He has called on Blizzard Entertainment, the company that makes World of Warcraft, to waive or discount the costs associated with joining the game so that therapists can more easily communicate with at-risk players in their preferred environment.

“We will be launching this project by the end of the year. I think it’s already clear that psychiatrists will have to stay within the parameters of the game. They certainly wouldn’t be wandering around the game in white coats and would have to use the same characters available to other players,” said Dr Graham.

“Of course one problem we’re going to have to overcome is that while a psychiatrist may excel in what they do in the real world, they’re probably not going to be very good at playing World of Warcraft.

“We may have to work at that if we are going to get through to those who play this game for hours at end.”


One solution proposed by Dr Graham is recruiting existing players to act as “peer mentors” for other users of the game. He said that internet addiction was very difficult to identify, as the isolation involved meant sufferers were often out of sight and out of mind.

“Those effected don’t exhibit the same outward warning signs as most teenage anti-social behaviour issues do because they’re in their bedrooms most of the time, seemingly out of trouble. Because of this we can’t get through to them in the traditional educational environment or intrude on their actual bedrooms, we need to turn to the internet itself to tackle these problems.”

Blizzard Entertainment was unavailable for comment at the time of publication.


Source : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/5899659/Addiction-therapists-signing-up-to-World-of-Warcraft.html


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