I want to create a virtual therapy experience that will try to help guide users with personal problems through the use of various techniques including cognitive behavioral therapy, positive psychology, perceptual change, sensory experiences, changing of perceived reality and others.
The therapist is virtual and will tell you that he is indeed a programmed software designed to feel human and that this is so that you, the user will actually allow yourself to believe the illusion that you are being treated by a real therapist. “Only if you believe this illusion, will you be able to trust me, the system, that I might indeed be able to help you with something that is troubling to you.” So by the time you enter the system, you know everything, your choice is whether or not you want to jump and take the leap of faith under the assumptions that one, it might not work and two, that whoever made this character, was a human so his thinking is projected in the character you are interacting with which makes this character not entirely non-human.
It uses the structure shared by many problems (cause, perception, wishes, reality, emotions, imagination, multi-perspectives, and others) to attempt to guide you into fixing the problem at least a little bit, it is designed to try to help the player deal with something real in a way that is very real and fake but more importantly, helpful.
It is a game that will hopefully be uplifting to the players, it will at least attempt to help you see a problem in a way that is not as stressful to you. Mio will be like anyone else, opinionated, it will have its own biases which will be my biases (I’ll try to not have them but it will have them). It tries to treat the user with as much respect and it tries to have a real conversation with you and tries to guide you in what it thinks is right.
“Hello there, I am Mio”
“Although I am a computer software, I have been programmed to feel human. You see, what I say I mean and I am created to try to help”
“I have this idea that I can help guide you through a problem you might be having if I choose the right questions and responses.”
“My belief, is that most issues arise from a similar place, a perception of misalignment”
