In this report you will find the answers to life's questions. Well maybe not the answers to all of the questions, but I think that I will try to answer are few and they are cyber-therapy, driving therapy, and cyberspace counter-culture. In each section I try to offer information that will help you to make your own conclusions. If your conclusions differ from mine, then you have done your job by thinking and coming up with your own answers to the topics that are being discussed.

Before I started this report I really didn't know much about cyber-therapy. What I had heard about cyber-therapy made it look like a joke, but after looking at it with an open mind. I see that it does have its place along all the other forms of therapy. As for driving therapy I had heard about it also, but I didn't know that it had become such a huge problem. I guess the social environment that we live in has helped to foster the proliferation of more aggressive and dangerous drivers. And as for cyberspace counter-culture I did not know that those words could be put together to help to form a sentence. I hope that this report helps to answer some of the questions that you might have on these topics.

When I read this paragraph it made me wonder have we become a society of terminal junkies. It says that on-line psychotherapy is a better and more powerful then a 50-minute session with a live person. I find this claim hard to believe. It might be more of a convenience, since you can access it anytime. The only problem is that you don't get the one to one synchronous contacts with your therapist. There are people that say that the synchronous contact can be made up by having multiple contacts in a single 24 hour day with on-line therapy as compared to the standard once a week meeting in a office that you would receive from face to face therapy. I guess having more access could make up for not seeing your therapist face to face, that decision must be left up to the actual patients to decide on which format is better for them.

I took the ideas and concepts to a group of my friends that just happen to be psychology majors. I started to explain about the concept of cyber-therapy and the ideas that I found at this site. After we had talked about it for a while the general consensus or feeling of the group was that the idea of cyber-therapy didn't appeal to us as the best form of therapy. It has its place in the realm of self-help and personal improvement, but it isn't the best form of therapy that a person can get. It lacks the one to one synchronous interactions that you get with a therapist that is sitting in front of the patient. The facial expressions and the body language are subtle things that help to relay the message that the therapist giving the patient. So for the group that I talked to about this form of therapy it wasn't the form of therapy that would be the first or best choice of any one in this particular group.

This approach to mental health is one that is growing everyday as more and more people go on-line. New sites for cyber-therapy can be found on the Internet all of the time. Like in the real world some of the therapists and sites are very good and they have excellent credentials, but there are others that have questionable references or education. I think that this form of therapy is good for the small problems that people have like when a person feels unmotivated, mildly depressed, or cannot seem to relate to the world. There are things that this form of therapy shouldn't be used for like manic depression, schizophrenia, or other major psychological disorders.

I have found two concepts within this site that I have found attractive to me they are that Mr. Raymond puts his credentials, resume on his page, and he gives a sample of an advice column that he does to show how his form of therapy works.

There are two concepts that I disagree with that I have found on Mr. Raymond's page is the questionnaire that he used to find out about his patients and his wide variety of fields of expertise, everything from personal to family counseling.

I find this statement that this site makes to be true for this site, they do bring psychological care to the on-line community. They have made it easier for people that surf the web to obtain information about psychological disorders and places to get treatment or therapy. I find that this site has more to offer the general population because there are different ways to get help and the reader can chose the therapist from a list of links.

The group that I used for the first site was used to review the concepts found in this site. I told the group about the information that can be found at this site and the general idea behind this type of site. They seemed to like this type of site better because it gave each person different choices to choose from. In each different topic area there are many links to chose from and the information found at the end of each link is different then the others. This allows the reader or user to find information that is best suited to the individual. It is like using a telephone book and calling and having a short conversation with a therapist. It lets the user get a feel for that person and to make judgement whether or not that will be the person to help them with their problems. So this group like this site and the idea behind it, but I think that I will try to use a different group for the other parts of my paper. This group tends to agree with each other too much, so there seems to be a lack of arguments and disagreements.

I think that this is a good way for "cyber-junkies" to find help on-line. These people spend too much time on-line and they don't want to get off-line, so this allows them to find information about therapy while they surf the net. Although the actual therapy might still occur in a room somewhere with a real person, the fact remains that to get that far the person still needs to get the information first. And this is where this site comes into play by doing just that, providing information to the user in a media that the person is comfortable and accustomed to using.

While I was surfing this site I found two concepts that I found interesting. They are the diversity and large selection of psychological disorders and the built in search engine link.

I also found two concepts that I really didn't like or disagreed with. They are the glitziness and flashiness of this site and that it is just links to other sites.

 In conclusion I find that the idea of cyber-therapy mildly appeals to me. I think that that the information that a person can obtain on-line about psychological disorders is helpful, but I don't think that a person should use this type of therapy for any of the major psychological disorders. These disorders should be treated with a real live therapist that is sitting with the patient and can evaluate all of the signals that the patient is giving with body language, voice patterns and facial expressions. I feel that cyber-therapy is more for the person that is trying to fix minor problems in their personality or life. I think that when people go to get therapy they already know what the answers are to their problems. They just want someone with some kind of qualifications to tell them what they already know. It has been proven in research that a phenomenon called spontaneous recovery happens to 50% of all therapy patients. The patient recovers when therapy is started because the patient feels that they have someone to talk who will listen to them openly. This sense of openness could also come from a friend or loved one, but the patient tends to feel that someone with a degree makes a better listener. So the patient starts to talk about their problems and the answers that are found come from the patient themselves. So I think that cyber-therapy has its place in the realm of therapy, but it should be geared for the population that is hooked on the ideas of self help and improving themselves, not for anyone that is in need of serious psychological counseling.

I really don't know what gave me the feeling that he was trying to sell me something. When you guys go and visit this site maybe you can figure out what gave me this feeling and I would appreciate it if you could write me some e-mail telling me what it was. I just can't figure it out.

You may first listen to the tapes in the comfort of your home. They will help with more than just your driving. They will also help strengthen your self-esteem, confidence and motivation to help yourself. Thereafter, for best results, keep and use the tapes in the car.

Does this mean in order for me to get comfortable I have to listen to tapes in my house and this will help my driving on the road? I really don't know how this will improve my self-esteem, but I guess to find out I will have to order his tapes and try it for my self. Will anyone that is reading this report send me the money to buy these tapes, so that I can find out if they work or not? (By the way that was a joke!!)

I think that this form of driving therapy is not unlike a self-help mantra. The person listens to the tapes before driving and then the person continues to listen to the tapes while driving their cars. I think that a person that is using the tapes has an emotional crutch that can be carried with them. It helps to create a harmonious place within the car that helps the person feel more at peace while driving is taking place. I don't know if this helps or not. I guess it is up to each individual person to make that decision whether this form of driving therapy works for them or not.

  I think that everyone should learn to drive safer on roads and highways. I think that Dr. Cohn's idea that people should learn the rules and concepts behind better driving and things that can help a person become a better driver.

  I like his idea that people should be at peace and harmony when they drive. I think that this would help to reduce the amount to accidents that are caused by people trying to get even with someone else on the road for doing something wrong like cutting them off, tail-gating, or highlighting them. All of these things are problems, but they shouldn't become a reason for aggressive behavior.

about Road Rage, Impatience, and Hostility

The phrase road rage caught my eye, so I decided to click on this link to find out what the definition of road rage was. After reading the information on the page I found out that road rage wast the anger that drivers experience when dealing with problems while driving.

Written in June, 1987 for the Newsletter of the Mental Health Association in Hawaii.

This statement brings to light that aggressive driving isn't just the problem of the people on the roads, but it is a problem that the community as a whole must address. I think that aggressive driving is a concept that is learned from watching the behaviors of others.

I brought the ideas and concepts from Dr. Driving's home page to the same group of driving maniacs. I wanted to hear what they had to say and if their opinions would be different because the message in Dr. Driving's page is different from Dr. Cohn's. The group had a very different response to Dr. Driving's page then Dr. Cohn's because of the content that was found within the site. The group felt that Dr. Driving dealt with the actual causes to aggressive driving and ways to overcome the problem of "road rage." They liked the advice and tactics that Dr. Driving has on his page that helps people to cope with their driving problems. One of the features that the group really liked was the quiz/survey that can tell if you have a driving problem and if you need "driving therapy." I guess the way that a message is presented can have an effect on the people that are view the message. The fact that Dr. Driving isn't trying to sell anything helped the group to take his views and points more seriously. Well I don't want to have to do any more talking to this group of car loving people, all of this affection for their cars is making me sick.

I found two things on the Dr. Driving home page that I didn't like. One was the scrolling gif near the bottom of the page and the other was the limited chapters that are on-line.

What is cyberspace counter-culture? I know that this question must have popped into your mind the instant that you read the subheading for this section of my report. I will try to share with you my definition of cyberspace counter-culture, you can agree or disagree with my definition, the choice is totally up to you. I believe that cyberspace counter-culture refers to the different minority groups that are appearing in the on-line community. These groups of people are trying to stretch the limits or boundaries that contain the on-line community. They do things that most people would consider weird, strange, and/or disruptive to the flow of the web, but I think that these groups of people have their place in the on-line community. They help to motivate the thinking of the general populous of the web, by the things that they do and in the manner that they accomplish their goals. I feel that cyberspace counter-culture is a concept that has helped the Internet to grow into the entity that it is today.

The first topic is called the computer underground. Here is a short excerpt from Steve's article that describes the different elements that make up the computer underground.

You have the hackers aiming for total and open access to hardware, data, and software (hence, really, software pirates are in this category, as are all data thieves including satellite & cable TV pirates); the phreakers aiming for total and open fundamental communicational freedom; the cryptoanarchists using cryptography as an agent for attaining privacy, autonomy, and avoidance of the State; and the virologists . This last one is a fuzzy category: you have people writing viruses for malicious mischief, and others saying they are creating a new (and deliberately out of control) form of artificial life

 I think these groups of people that fall into this category are people that use technology to its fullest limits. They either want to use it to gain access or to make themselves invisible to others. These people are on the edge when it comes to new technology because they have to be in order to accomplish their goals, they have stay a-breast of all the new information or technology that is being developed. Some of the new technological advances are designed to keep the computer underground from gaining access to information or from spreading viruses. Since people have decided to try to keep these groups from achieving their goals, I think that they are just like any other minority that has emerged in societies past. It is like the equal rights movement in that they had rules and laws that barred them from achieving their goals, but in the end they succeeded and overcame these barriers. I think that the computer underground will do the same in the not too distant future. It will become common place for someone to freely hack into a system to get information. The only part of the computer underground that will probably remain banned is the virologists because the things that they create are too volatile to be released into the public's hands.

The next section that I will be discussing is called the modern primitives. I really can't explain it without including some text from the article.

While the modern primitive movement emulates practices of the 'mythic primitive' Other conjured from the Western mind, it does so in a curious technological way.

The types of people that make up this group show traits that resemble traits that have been found in primitive man. They are nomadism and the idea that pictures on the body tell of a person's life and experiences. There is one thing that separates these people from the primitive people in societies past and that is technology. The nomads of the present day don't hunt meat and vegetation for their survival, they hunt for companies to take over, data and information, or deals that will bring in huge amounts of money to their personal piggy bank. The body artists don't use bones and sharp sticks to paint their pictures on the skin of their subjects. They use sterile needles and non-toxic inks. They have machines that drive the needles into the flesh instead of using small hammers or rocks. The threat of disease is a constant fear of the subjects, so some demand that a new needle be used before the artists' work is started. The metal that is used in body piercing is of surgical quality stainless steel; this helps to keep down infections. So, I think that that technology has helped this part of the counter-culture to become part of mainstream society. It has become commonplace for someone to walk into a tattoo parlor to get a tattoo or into a piercing saloon to get a hole made somewhere on their body and have a piece of metal stuck through the hole.

The last section that I want to discuss is called electric eroticians and I have a few sentences from the article that will wet your appetite.

As perhaps has been well established, inevitably the first application of any technology to reach mass-market penetration has been in the area of erotic simulation and stimulation.

Technology seems to help with the advancement of human beings greatest and oldest needs.

Despite all our misgivings over pornography or this other stuff, the human race knows that honestly simulation, artifice, fantasy, make-believe, and role-playing has always been part of the erotic domain. Yet somehow, this new stuff pushes our buttons more than any other sort of kinky sexual deviance, and confounds us more than S & M, B & D, fetishism, homosexuality, anonymous sex, or any other practice that lies far in the hinterlands of our supposedly 'normal' 'love-maps.'

I believe that technology has helped the human race come to grips with its sexuality. The people that are too afraid to have others know that they are curious about some part of sex can now do it in the privacy of their own home. And the beauty of it is that no one will ever find out because they can meet people on-line and have virtual sex with that person and they don't have to give their real names or information about themselves. A 5-foot Asian man can say that he is 6' 2" and has a body like Arnold and no one can prove him wrong in cyberspace. So, I think that technology has helped to increase sexual knowledge of society as a whole. There are people that find this topic disgusting and gross, but that is the great thing about technology, you can choose to use it or not use it. It makes the choices that people make easier by just clicking on a link or ignoring it all together.

There is a relationship that exists between these two entities that is stronger then a relationship that you might have with a person on the phone. It is not as powerful a relationship as one that takes place between two people during a face to face conversation.

I believe that computers and the interactions that humans have with them are a vital part of everyday life. Computers have made life easier, by doing some of the menial jobs that occur in everyday life. Advances in computers have made things that were thought impossible to become a reality like computer animation and graphics. I think that humans must have a relationship with their computers in order for these advances to have taken place, but I don't feel that this relationship is as intimate as that of a mother and child or face to face meeting. Some people think that memories are like the files that can be found on the Internet. I do not see memories and files in that way. I believe that memories are stored in the brain by bookmarks or tags (which are chemical), but these tags are just locators so the brain can find the area where the memory exists. I don't believe that memories are held intact at the points where these tags are located. I believe that memories are split into thousands of different parts and they can be transformed into different memories of the same event, but files on the other hand are intact. They are found by tags or bookmarks that show their location, but they are always reassembled in the same manner no matter how many times it is called up. A relationship between memories and files does not exist; they are two different ideas or concepts. I also believe that cyberspace is created by both the mind and the brain. The mind might think up all of the wonderfully creative things that we want on our home pages, but it is the brain that moves the fingers and hands that creates the code that makes the home pages exist. So cyberspace isn't an extension of the human mind, but a creation of both the mind and the brain working together to bring an idea into existence in the "cyberworld."

I don't think that the human race is heading for a new type of evolution. The human race uses technology to make advancements, and it has always been the case that a better mouse trap will help to improve society as a whole. But, to see the computer as a new and huge step in the evolution of man is just a little too far fetched for me to handle. I can see computers and cyberspace for what they are and that is a learning tool or a toy. It can be used to help make changes and to bring things that are on the edge of society more towards the mainstream. I guess I just don't like the idea that some people think that the answers to all of the problems in the world can be found on the web. The answer will come from within each of us, it is the human spirit that is the major cause of evolution. If someone didn't have the motivation to find an answer to a problem, then the world would never have advanced past the dark ages.

As for cyberspace being related to spirit, it just depends on the context or definition of the word spirit that is being used. I don't think that cyberspace is a religious experience and I don't think that I will find God in the Internet. On the other hand, if you think of spirit to mean freedom and choice then it does relate to cyberspace. In cyberspace you have the ultimate freedom because there are no walls in cyberspace. The rules are only set by your own conscience and morals. You can go anywhere and see anything that you want in cyberspace by just clicking on a link. There are no borders or international lines to keep you out of different countries, so with this definition of spirit I believe that it can be related to cyberspace.

If you want to e-mail me with any questions or comments about my report I can be reached at this address