You are here:

De-Roling from Experiences and Identities in Virtual Worlds
ARTICLE

, ,

Journal of Virtual Worlds Research Volume 10, Number 2, ISSN 1941-8477 Publisher: Journal of Virtual Worlds Research

Abstract

Within dramatherapy and psychodrama, the term \u2018de-roling\u2019 indicates a set of activities that assist the subjects of therapy in \u2018disrobing\u2019 themselves from their fictional characters. Starting from the psychological needs and the therapeutic goals that \u2018de-roling\u2019 techniques address in dramatherapy and psychodrama, this text provides a broader understanding of procedures and exercises that define and ease transitional experiences across cultural practices such as religious rituals and spatial design. After this introductory section, we propose a tentative answer as to why game studies and virtual world research largely ignored processes of \u2018roling\u2019 and \u2018de-roling\u2019 that separate the lived experience of role-play from our everyday sense of the self. The concluding sections argue that de-roling techniques are likely to become more relevant, both academically and in terms of their practical applications, with the growing diffusion of virtual technologies in social practices. The relationships we can establish with ourselves and with our surroundings in digital virtual worlds are, we argue, only partially comparable with similar occurrences in pre-digital practices of subjectification. We propose a perspective according to which the accessibility and immersive phenomenological richness of virtual reality technologies are likely to exacerbate the potentially dissociative effects of virtual reality applications. This text constitutes an initial step towards framing specific socio-technical concerns and starting a timely conversation that binds together dramatherapy, psychodrama, game studies, and the design of digital virtual worlds.

Citation

Gualeni, S., Vella, D. & Harrington, J. (2017). De-Roling from Experiences and Identities in Virtual Worlds. Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, 10(2),. Retrieved March 19, 2024 from .

Keywords