L’utilisation de l’avatar dans les groupes thérapeutiques à médiation « jeu vidéo ». Du double virtuel au double transitionnel

Abstract

AimsIn a group of adolescents involved in therapeutic mediation with video games, the authors set out, in a psychodynamic approach, to explore the use of the avatar as the “double”. MethodsThe avatar is envisaged via its role as an intermediary between bodily implication, sensori-motricity, action and representation. The specific features of the video game suggest that the avatar should be seen as an object possessing reflexive properties and an inherent third-party identity, making this avatar the virtual, digital analogon of a virtual psychic double. The analysis of clinical material derived from a video game mediation group with adolescents shows that the avatar has a “transitional double” function, enabling the subject to “produce” himself subjectively. ResultsThe use of an avatar as a double of oneself brings about a change in identity for the player, and a reshaping of his (or her) relationship with the self and the world. In a setting where what dominates is the difficulty on the part of the adolescent in differentiating himself subjectively, the obstacles encountered during the manipulation of the avatar make it possible to use it in a symbolising perspective, as a prop for the transformation of identity and a means to process otherness. By contributing to the occurrence of a self-reflexive doubling, the use of the avatar could combine two different registers in the double – one where it supports a reflexive return to the self, and another favouring the emergence and recognition otherness? Thus, the “double” interplay between the player and the avatar reflect an oscillation between two poles, between identity and the “other than self”, a source of subjectivation. DiscussionThe analysis of the clinical material leads us to hypothesise that the avatar, in certain conditions, has the function of a “transitional double”. While the confrontation with otherness points to the narcissistic illusion of being consubstantial with one's avatar by generating the experience of the strange or “uncanny” in the player, the experience of survival and reunion with the avatar favours a process of subjective differentiation. Further to this, it does not appear possible to envisage the use of the avatar-object, and the subjectivation effects that this entails, independently from the transference context that develops in this type of mediation-based therapeutic group. This perspective suggests the need to consider that there are different levels of transference to the double that occur simultaneously in a video game involving an avatar – among the adolescents in the group and between them and the professionals. ConclusionThese considerations show how the digital avatar, when taken on as a transitional double, is a very useful vehicle for subjective and identity transformation. In the group therapy dynamic, it also appears as a transference attractor for each subject in the group and for the group overall.