The avatar may be treated as a double of the self or as a companion, a guide whom one follows or a slave to whom one gives orders. But in any case, its owner is invited to engage here in three complementary forms of symbolization: sensory-motor, imaged, and verbal.
Thus it can embody a fragment of oneself, a person one has known, admired or feared, even someone that one has imagined on the basis of stories one has heard or a family legend. This exploration can enable the construction of a potential space or, on the contrary, foster disavowal. Asking a player to speak of the choice and the history of his avatar is an essential moment of psychotherapy.

Adolescence, 2009, T. 27, n°3, pp. 721-731.