October 2, 2025 • 20 mins
What if the controller in your hands is more than entertainment—what if it’s a clinical tool? We dive into how video games create a safe, structured space for growth, where failure is feedback, flow builds focus, and stories teach the mindset shifts therapy aims to unlock. From the fog-drenched tension of Silent Hill F to the classroom-to-cosmos arc of Persona 3 Reload and the patient puzzle-solving of Breath of the Wild, we map mechanics to mental health: resilience under pressure, cognitive flexibility, emotion regulation, and meaning-making.
As clinicians, we share practical ways to bring play into the room without gimmicks. Short, intentional gameplay segments can surface self-talk, triggers, and problem-solving styles in real time. Debriefs turn boss fights into case studies, party roles into communication patterns, and cooldowns into recovery plans. For work between sessions, we unpack gamified tools like Habitica and journaling apps to transform values into quests, track streaks like EXP, and celebrate milestones with purpose. Along the way, we challenge screen-time shame by asking a better question: not “How long did you play?” but “What did the play give you—relief, mastery, connection, courage?”
Games also offer what real life withholds: a believable arc. Clear goals, fair challenges, and earned triumphs restore a sense that effort matters. We explore how modern mythology in games echoes deep psychology—archetypes, the collective unconscious, and growth mindset—so players can choose who they are becoming: sage, magician, creator, or leader. Whether you’re a therapist looking for evidence-informed interventions or a player seeking permission to claim the benefits you already feel, you’ll leave with concrete steps to turn your favorite titles into tools for change.
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If you would like to support the show and help us unlock additional possibilities for future episodes and projects, this can now be done through Patreon!
You can watch us play games LIVE and join our communities to get more connection from every episode:
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Welcome everyone to another episode of SoloQuest.
This is a spin-off of the GamingPersona podcast, but SoloQuest
is where I get to academicallyexplore whatever topics are
coming up during my Twitchstreams and be able to give them
as bite-sized little minipodcast episodes for all of you.
I don't know how long this one'sgonna go, but that's part of the
(00:20):
fun.
And the D20 chat topic for todayis using video games in therapy.
So before we get onto the topic,I want to just talk about why
you should watch the Twitchstreams that I do at twitch.tv
slash doctorgamology.
That is the central hub for allthe content that I create in my
community, in my organization,and my work with Kind Ridge
(00:44):
Behavioral Health.
And we're gonna talk a littlebit more about them later in
this episode.
But the reason you should watchthe streams on Twitch, usually
those are on Sunday, Monday, andThursday, but sometimes there's
other days too.
It really just depends what myschedule looks like.
And the reason you should watchis because this is where we talk
(01:05):
about the topics that willeventually become books and
become research studies andeventually become treatment
programs.
This is where I play the gameswith all of you, talk about
what's on my mind, you get tosee me react.
Like today, I've been playingSilent Hill F, which is a Silent
Hill game that takes place in a1960s Japanese village, and you
(01:28):
play as a Japanese schoolgirl,which is very different than
playing as James in Silent Hill2.
And if you were watching thestream, then you'd be here live
listening to this topic, andyou'd be able to participate in
the chat, and you'd be able toreally get the ideas as they're
fresh coming out of my mind thatyou can use in your therapy,
(01:50):
that you can use with yourcounselor, that you can talk
about with your friends andfamily and loved ones.
And the whole goal of thechannel, the whole idea of what
Dr.
Gamology is, is that video gamesare the modern mythology.
They enhance our philosophy, ourpsychology, our approach to
mental health.
They help us find ourselves,increase our self-esteem, find
(02:10):
our strategies that will help usbecome the best version of
ourself and the hero of our ownstory.
And what this episode is allabout after playing Silent Hill
is how would we use video gamesin therapy?
And I'm going to talk about thisfrom the point of view of
whether you are the therapist,the clinician, the life coach,
(02:31):
the geek therapist, or I'm goingto talk about it if you're the
person attending therapy and youwant your counselor to
understand what video games arefor you and how you find these
ideas of what you're going to doin your life.
I think it's all relevant.
It really just depends on ourpoint of view.
There's another conversation,maybe section three, is how do
you talk with people in yourlife about what video games are
(02:55):
and how they are actually atherapeutic tool?
One of my most popular posts onthreads, Twitter, Instagram, and
everything last week was asimple sentence that just said,
video games are therapy.
Hit the heart if you agree.
And people that have never metme before saw that and started
clicking and started commentingand started telling me stories
(03:18):
about what video games have beensince they were children, four
years old, seven years old, tenyears old, what they are now in
their 50s, their sixties,they're still playing video
games, they're still relevant,there's still a coping skill,
there's still a place to relaxand let out a breath, a sigh,
and let all the stress from yourday leave your body.
They're a place where thechallenge you're given, you're
(03:40):
meant to succeed, which is notactually a thing that a lot of
things in life are.
A lot of the challenges we'regiven at work and in school and
in relationships.
You're supposed to endure them,you're supposed to wrestle with
them, you're supposed to tinkerwith them, but ultimately, if
you succeed at them, you're justgiven another task.
Good job.
Count the back, do it again.
(04:00):
Video games do that too, but youknow what?
They give you psychologicalflow, they give you a story that
you get to experience in athree-act structure from the
beginning where you're nobody tothe end where you save the
world.
And saving the world in theworld doesn't actually feel like
saving the world all the time.
And that's really disappointing.
And that's why we go to therapybecause we have trauma, we have
(04:23):
mood issues, we have anxiety, wehave focus that just doesn't
know where to go.
We have a world that's all abouttechnology and it's rapid fire
and it's bouncing all over theplace and it's asking us do
this, do that, do me, do me, athousand things a day, not like
it was 50 years ago, when youcould do six or seven things in
one day, go home and relax theentire night.
(04:44):
No, no, no, no, no.
You go home and you have emails.
You need to have ADHD to succeedin this world.
This little world, this 21stcentury world, this technology
world where what we do onscreens can make us money, but
if we use those screens for fun,no, no, no, no, no.
And that's what my channel's allabout is saying, hey, hold on.
(05:06):
That's not fair.
That's not what video games are,that's not who we are, that's
not what we were meant to be atour moment of birth, and all the
life stages, from trust versusmistrust to generativity versus
stagnation, all the way throughthe lifespan.
There's something that we'resupposed to be, and it's gone,
(05:28):
right?
The world isn't letting us getit because it needs us to buy
into the grind, a never-endinggrind that you're not actually
supposed to succeed.
Go to college, get a degree, andthen pay off your student loans,
right?
It's not go to college, get adegree, and then contribute to
society.
I mean, that's what your job is,but even in the job, you're
(05:51):
stuck, right?
You're locked into a game thatisn't very fulfilling to
participate in all the time.
But a video game is like here'sa 10-hour experience, and you're
supposed to save the world andfeel good.
It's okay in fiction, but not innonfiction.
And what gamers want is forreality to make sense.
(06:16):
Now, if you're feeling all ofthat, it's very easy for that to
drive you into going to therapy.
All right, it's very easy tofeel that and be a therapist and
say the world is broken.
I want to help people find a fixso that they can enjoy being who
they are.
And ultimately, I do enjoy beingwho I am, but I struggle with it
(06:40):
every day.
This journey of becoming Dr.
Gamology is at least 16 or 17years in the making, and that's
exhausting.
Okay, when I come on Twitch, Ifeel relieved that I'm in a
place where I'm supposed to beto talk about video games with
people and try to make adifference, and that's why it's
(07:00):
so great that all of you arehere right now.
As a clinician, though, I getthat same feeling.
Okay, my identity when I'm doinga therapy session with people,
when I'm doing supervision withpeople, and when I'm doing a
Twitch stream with my followersand viewers and meeting new
people across the world, it'sall the same identity, the
(07:22):
persona of being the sage andhaving that knowledge of what
video games actually are, andthe magician of being creative
about it and showing people whatyou can really do with it if you
embrace it, being the creatorand saying, here's a new thing
that we didn't have before, andnow we do.
Twitch can be therapeutic, thePS5 can be therapeutic, your
(07:45):
gaming PC can be therapeutic,your smartphone can be a source
of therapy if you let it.
You can do journaling apps thatare gamified, like the Exist
app.
You could do task managementapps that are gamified, like
Habitica, which also I did apeer-reviewed article about
that, and we talked about thatlast solo quest.
(08:07):
You just put your tasks intoyour day and turn yourself into
the RPG character of yourdreams, and you can accomplish
anything if you just want togain those EXP and go be the
hero of your story.
But what really makes videogames work in therapy actually
is in line with what we alreadyknow about play therapy.
(08:27):
This idea that there is achildish curiosity that just
experiences the world through alens of fun.
And once we hit a certain stagein life, that lens of fun
doesn't have an outlet to seethings anymore.
And so we're stuck and we'reempty and we're left with all
these talents and not knowinghow to utilize them.
(08:49):
And when you give theopportunity to sit on the floor,
build things with blocks, putpeople in a sand tray scene with
different figures, roll somedice and tell the story based on
the pictures that you get.
These are play therapyinterventions.
You can do it with something assimple as a board with checkers
or chess pieces.
(09:10):
You could do it with Uno.
You can do it with Jenga.
You can do anything that canfacilitate more conversation to
dig deeper and just explorefreely your psyche, the
never-ending expanse of ideasand thoughts that make up who
you are.
Games unlock those because thejoy of playing things takes away
(09:33):
the threat of failure.
Because in a game, you're notsupposed to succeed instantly,
you're supposed to trial anderror your way until you reach a
conclusion that gives yousomething you didn't have
before, right?
You keep going from castle tocastle as Mario finding Toad and
saying, Ah, Mario, the princessyou're looking for is in a
(09:54):
different castle, and thatdoesn't feel like failure, it
just means on to the nextcastle, the next goal, the next
flag, and eventually theprincess is in that room.
It's enjoyable to pursue that.
And even if it takes you threehours to get there, it feels
good to find her.
(10:14):
But if you fail something IRL inreal life, people say you're
lazy, people say you weren'tdedicated, people say you didn't
pay attention, you didn't takethe right notes, you weren't
ready for the challenge, andthat just isn't true.
Growth mindset is a real thing.
You're not supposed to succeedat the most meaningful tasks in
(10:34):
life on the very first try.
Even me, when I wrote TheGamer's Journey, I got feedback
on the chapters that said, Hey,some of these things need to be
better, right?
You need to fix your way ofdescribing Dante's Inferno in
the middle of the book.
You need to change the way yousupport the ideas in this
(10:56):
different Bioshock infiniteinspired graphic.
I don't know that game, so Idon't know what I'm looking at.
Explain it better.
And these are pieces of feedbackthat I got.
So growth mindset.
Yeah, it's frustrating to say dobetter, but when you do better,
it's amazing.
Like in God of War, when Atreusfails to cut down an animal
(11:17):
correctly, and the animal getsaway, and he says, I'm sorry.
Kratos says, Don't be sorry, bebetter.
And that idea comes back laterin the franchise when Kratos
needs to apologize forsomething, and Atreus throws
(11:37):
that right back.
It's a learning lesson, it's afather-son moment, it's an ethos
for life.
Video games give us thesephilosophies all over the place.
I was just playing Expedition 33earlier in the week, and I got
to this scene where one of thecharacters says, We are the
(11:58):
artists that paint the bars ofour own cell, right?
We create the cage that locks usin, that makes our self-esteem
hard to reach.
But if we let video games becomethe therapy, these become life
lessons.
Like Valkorion said in Star WarsThe Old Republic in that classic
(12:20):
trailer for Knights of theFallen Empire.
Someone can have anything ifthey will only sacrifice.
And that idea also echoesthrough many different fandoms.
It's the law of equivalentexchange in Full Metal Alchemist
that you have to give somethingto get something.
And if that becomes the drivingforce of your work ethic, what
(12:44):
is there that you cannot do?
But those ideas are all over theplace in the DNA of video games.
All right.
They give us ideas to inspireus, they show us that even a
high school kid in a personagame can defeat a corrupted god
and save the world and cleansethe broken psyche of the
(13:07):
collective subconscious thatCarl Jung talked about in
analytical psychology a hundredyears ago.
An idea from Psychology'sFoundation a hundred plus years
ago constantly comes back invideo games to give us something
special and new and amazing.
All right.
(13:27):
Video games can actually give usanything that we need to inspire
us to become better at things inlife.
We just have to look at thestories and unpack what they
mean.
Right?
Whether it's a horror game likeSilent Hill F, like I was
playing today, or Persona 3Reload, where we're going to
high school and then we're goinginto the psyche and we're
(13:50):
battling the demons and theneurotic tendencies of society
to make the world a betterplace, one person at a time, one
room at a time, one situation ata time.
When we're playing video games,we are experiencing something
therapeutic because it's goinginto our subconscious realm and
(14:10):
saying, you can do this.
This challenge was designed foryou to succeed and to feel
fulfilled and to feel like youwere good enough just because
you made it to that final roomand found the princess.
So if a counselor wants to handyou a switch and say, Let's play
the Legend of Zelda Breath ofthe Wild, find a shrine, and
(14:32):
talk about the problem-solvingprocess to get that missing
relic at the end of the room,right?
To eventually level up our heartcontainers, to level up our
stamina.
By working hard, we eventuallyget the things that we need to
go back into the wilderness andsucceed in life.
That's what gaining EXP is allabout.
(14:53):
That's what that's what it islike to level up.
Okay.
A counselor can do that.
If we're allowed to playcheckers and chess and
facilitate conversation witheach play, each turn.
Every time we put down a card inUno, we talk about the motion,
the emotional experience of whatit's like for that moment to
happen.
Every time we knock a tower downin Jenga, we talk about a time
(15:16):
where we fell short and how wepicked up the pieces.
The metaphor of picking uppieces.
Video games are about a metaphorof finding ourselves.
Just like therapy is a structurefor us to experience the
metaphors, find our archetypes,unravel the things that hinder
our self-esteem, find ourpersona, and then apply our
(15:38):
persona, our personality, ourarchetypes, our strategies, our
philosophies for life, and thengo live life better.
Do it better, feel better, loveyourself better.
We spend so much time talkingabout how much time did you
spend on video games and screenswhen everything else we do in
life is on screens.
It just doesn't make senseanymore.
(15:59):
It's not about being on ascreen, it's about what you do
being yourself, whether you'reon a screen or not.
And you know what?
We are allowed to relax too.
Relaxation can be therapybecause meditation can be
therapy, exercise can betherapy.
Any activity we elect forourselves to restore the
(16:21):
energies that get depleted whenwe exert our effort and
influence into the challengesthat we're given in life.
That is our therapy.
So if you're a counselor, letyour clients play a video game
and talk to you about whatthey're experiencing.
Let them play a match of Leagueof Legends in front of you, a
Fortnite, a Valorance.
Let them play Call of Duty, letthem play Breath of the Wild or
(16:44):
Tears of the Kingdom.
Let them show you Persona 3.
Let them talk to you about thephilosophical situations of
trying to save entiregenerations of people and Claire
Obscure Expedition 33.
Let them show you the outfit ontheir created character in Final
Fantasy XIV, Dawn Trail.
Let them talk to you about whyEndwalker might be more
enjoyable than Dawn Trail.
(17:06):
There is stuff in the psychethere that if everyone just
understood video games are aform of therapy, then maybe we'd
be having the rightconversations instead of being
worried about the merit ofchoosing to play a video game
for 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 180minutes, five hours.
I mean, how long did you watchNetflix today if you're
(17:27):
listening to this?
And why aren't we talking aboutthat?
How much did you spend replyingand updating your statuses on
social media?
Why aren't we talking aboutthat?
Why is it always video games?
All these things are aprojection of our psyche in our
inner world, trying to makesense of how we connect with the
world around us because theworld around us is digital.
(17:47):
And so part of what we are nowis digital.
So it is, in my opinion, as aperson who leads research task
force, edits books that aregoing to educate psychiatrists,
psychologists, and mental healthprofessionals across the country
(18:08):
and will influence legislationand policy across the world.
The video games are therapy.
They should be a part of ourtherapy, and when we play them,
we should open up our mindsinstead of saying, Oh, I hope
people don't judge me for how Iplayed this for this period of
time today.
I think people should be saying,I hope I get what I need out of
(18:29):
this play session.
Whatever that is.
A chance to enjoy things andrelax, a chance to accomplish
things, a chance to blow thingsup, a chance to forge
friendships and groups and takedown the bosses and save the
world.
Because you know what?
We need that energy in life.
We really, really do.
(18:50):
I hope everyone made it to theend of this conversation today.
It was so fun to give it to you.
If this is the kind of thingyou're excited by, follow me on
Twitch.
Check out the next stream,twitch.tv slash Dr.
Gameology.
Buy a copy of my book, TheGamer's Journey.
You can get it at the Dr.
Gamology Shopify store.
(19:13):
You know, you can follow me onall the social medias.
It's at Dr.
Gameology D-R-G-A-M-E-O-L-O-G-Y.
And next time you play a videogame, think about what it's
giving you and appreciate it.
And when you do that, alwaysremember to continue the
journey.
Welcome everyone to another episode of SoloQuest.
This is a spin-off of the GamingPersona podcast, but SoloQuest
is where I get to academicallyexplore whatever topics are
coming up during my Twitchstreams and be able to give them
as bite-sized little minipodcast episodes for all of you.
I don't know how long this one'sgonna go, but that's part of the
(00:20):
fun.
And the D20 chat topic for todayis using video games in therapy.
So before we get onto the topic,I want to just talk about why
you should watch the Twitchstreams that I do at twitch.tv
slash doctorgamology.
That is the central hub for allthe content that I create in my
community, in my organization,and my work with Kind Ridge
(00:44):
Behavioral Health.
And we're gonna talk a littlebit more about them later in
this episode.
But the reason you should watchthe streams on Twitch, usually
those are on Sunday, Monday, andThursday, but sometimes there's
other days too.
It really just depends what myschedule looks like.
And the reason you should watchis because this is where we talk
(01:05):
about the topics that willeventually become books and
become research studies andeventually become treatment
programs.
This is where I play the gameswith all of you, talk about
what's on my mind, you get tosee me react.
Like today, I've been playingSilent Hill F, which is a Silent
Hill game that takes place in a1960s Japanese village, and you
(01:28):
play as a Japanese schoolgirl,which is very different than
playing as James in Silent Hill2.
And if you were watching thestream, then you'd be here live
listening to this topic, andyou'd be able to participate in
the chat, and you'd be able toreally get the ideas as they're
fresh coming out of my mind thatyou can use in your therapy,
(01:50):
that you can use with yourcounselor, that you can talk
about with your friends andfamily and loved ones.
And the whole goal of thechannel, the whole idea of what
Dr.
Gamology is, is that video gamesare the modern mythology.
They enhance our philosophy, ourpsychology, our approach to
mental health.
They help us find ourselves,increase our self-esteem, find
(02:10):
our strategies that will help usbecome the best version of
ourself and the hero of our ownstory.
And what this episode is allabout after playing Silent Hill
is how would we use video gamesin therapy?
And I'm going to talk about thisfrom the point of view of
whether you are the therapist,the clinician, the life coach,
(02:31):
the geek therapist, or I'm goingto talk about it if you're the
person attending therapy and youwant your counselor to
understand what video games arefor you and how you find these
ideas of what you're going to doin your life.
I think it's all relevant.
It really just depends on ourpoint of view.
There's another conversation,maybe section three, is how do
you talk with people in yourlife about what video games are
(02:55):
and how they are actually atherapeutic tool?
One of my most popular posts onthreads, Twitter, Instagram, and
everything last week was asimple sentence that just said,
video games are therapy.
Hit the heart if you agree.
And people that have never metme before saw that and started
clicking and started commentingand started telling me stories
(03:18):
about what video games have beensince they were children, four
years old, seven years old, tenyears old, what they are now in
their 50s, their sixties,they're still playing video
games, they're still relevant,there's still a coping skill,
there's still a place to relaxand let out a breath, a sigh,
and let all the stress from yourday leave your body.
They're a place where thechallenge you're given, you're
(03:40):
meant to succeed, which is notactually a thing that a lot of
things in life are.
A lot of the challenges we'regiven at work and in school and
in relationships.
You're supposed to endure them,you're supposed to wrestle with
them, you're supposed to tinkerwith them, but ultimately, if
you succeed at them, you're justgiven another task.
Good job.
Count the back, do it again.
(04:00):
Video games do that too, but youknow what?
They give you psychologicalflow, they give you a story that
you get to experience in athree-act structure from the
beginning where you're nobody tothe end where you save the
world.
And saving the world in theworld doesn't actually feel like
saving the world all the time.
And that's really disappointing.
And that's why we go to therapybecause we have trauma, we have
(04:23):
mood issues, we have anxiety, wehave focus that just doesn't
know where to go.
We have a world that's all abouttechnology and it's rapid fire
and it's bouncing all over theplace and it's asking us do
this, do that, do me, do me, athousand things a day, not like
it was 50 years ago, when youcould do six or seven things in
one day, go home and relax theentire night.
(04:44):
No, no, no, no, no.
You go home and you have emails.
You need to have ADHD to succeedin this world.
This little world, this 21stcentury world, this technology
world where what we do onscreens can make us money, but
if we use those screens for fun,no, no, no, no, no.
And that's what my channel's allabout is saying, hey, hold on.
(05:06):
That's not fair.
That's not what video games are,that's not who we are, that's
not what we were meant to be atour moment of birth, and all the
life stages, from trust versusmistrust to generativity versus
stagnation, all the way throughthe lifespan.
There's something that we'resupposed to be, and it's gone,
(05:28):
right?
The world isn't letting us getit because it needs us to buy
into the grind, a never-endinggrind that you're not actually
supposed to succeed.
Go to college, get a degree, andthen pay off your student loans,
right?
It's not go to college, get adegree, and then contribute to
society.
I mean, that's what your job is,but even in the job, you're
(05:51):
stuck, right?
You're locked into a game thatisn't very fulfilling to
participate in all the time.
But a video game is like here'sa 10-hour experience, and you're
supposed to save the world andfeel good.
It's okay in fiction, but not innonfiction.
And what gamers want is forreality to make sense.
(06:16):
Now, if you're feeling all ofthat, it's very easy for that to
drive you into going to therapy.
All right, it's very easy tofeel that and be a therapist and
say the world is broken.
I want to help people find a fixso that they can enjoy being who
they are.
And ultimately, I do enjoy beingwho I am, but I struggle with it
(06:40):
every day.
This journey of becoming Dr.
Gamology is at least 16 or 17years in the making, and that's
exhausting.
Okay, when I come on Twitch, Ifeel relieved that I'm in a
place where I'm supposed to beto talk about video games with
people and try to make adifference, and that's why it's
(07:00):
so great that all of you arehere right now.
As a clinician, though, I getthat same feeling.
Okay, my identity when I'm doinga therapy session with people,
when I'm doing supervision withpeople, and when I'm doing a
Twitch stream with my followersand viewers and meeting new
people across the world, it'sall the same identity, the
(07:22):
persona of being the sage andhaving that knowledge of what
video games actually are, andthe magician of being creative
about it and showing people whatyou can really do with it if you
embrace it, being the creatorand saying, here's a new thing
that we didn't have before, andnow we do.
Twitch can be therapeutic, thePS5 can be therapeutic, your
(07:45):
gaming PC can be therapeutic,your smartphone can be a source
of therapy if you let it.
You can do journaling apps thatare gamified, like the Exist
app.
You could do task managementapps that are gamified, like
Habitica, which also I did apeer-reviewed article about
that, and we talked about thatlast solo quest.
(08:07):
You just put your tasks intoyour day and turn yourself into
the RPG character of yourdreams, and you can accomplish
anything if you just want togain those EXP and go be the
hero of your story.
But what really makes videogames work in therapy actually
is in line with what we alreadyknow about play therapy.
(08:27):
This idea that there is achildish curiosity that just
experiences the world through alens of fun.
And once we hit a certain stagein life, that lens of fun
doesn't have an outlet to seethings anymore.
And so we're stuck and we'reempty and we're left with all
these talents and not knowinghow to utilize them.
(08:49):
And when you give theopportunity to sit on the floor,
build things with blocks, putpeople in a sand tray scene with
different figures, roll somedice and tell the story based on
the pictures that you get.
These are play therapyinterventions.
You can do it with something assimple as a board with checkers
or chess pieces.
(09:10):
You could do it with Uno.
You can do it with Jenga.
You can do anything that canfacilitate more conversation to
dig deeper and just explorefreely your psyche, the
never-ending expanse of ideasand thoughts that make up who
you are.
Games unlock those because thejoy of playing things takes away
(09:33):
the threat of failure.
Because in a game, you're notsupposed to succeed instantly,
you're supposed to trial anderror your way until you reach a
conclusion that gives yousomething you didn't have
before, right?
You keep going from castle tocastle as Mario finding Toad and
saying, Ah, Mario, the princessyou're looking for is in a
(09:54):
different castle, and thatdoesn't feel like failure, it
just means on to the nextcastle, the next goal, the next
flag, and eventually theprincess is in that room.
It's enjoyable to pursue that.
And even if it takes you threehours to get there, it feels
good to find her.
(10:14):
But if you fail something IRL inreal life, people say you're
lazy, people say you weren'tdedicated, people say you didn't
pay attention, you didn't takethe right notes, you weren't
ready for the challenge, andthat just isn't true.
Growth mindset is a real thing.
You're not supposed to succeedat the most meaningful tasks in
(10:34):
life on the very first try.
Even me, when I wrote TheGamer's Journey, I got feedback
on the chapters that said, Hey,some of these things need to be
better, right?
You need to fix your way ofdescribing Dante's Inferno in
the middle of the book.
You need to change the way yousupport the ideas in this
(10:56):
different Bioshock infiniteinspired graphic.
I don't know that game, so Idon't know what I'm looking at.
Explain it better.
And these are pieces of feedbackthat I got.
So growth mindset.
Yeah, it's frustrating to say dobetter, but when you do better,
it's amazing.
Like in God of War, when Atreusfails to cut down an animal
(11:17):
correctly, and the animal getsaway, and he says, I'm sorry.
Kratos says, Don't be sorry, bebetter.
And that idea comes back laterin the franchise when Kratos
needs to apologize forsomething, and Atreus throws
(11:37):
that right back.
It's a learning lesson, it's afather-son moment, it's an ethos
for life.
Video games give us thesephilosophies all over the place.
I was just playing Expedition 33earlier in the week, and I got
to this scene where one of thecharacters says, We are the
(11:58):
artists that paint the bars ofour own cell, right?
We create the cage that locks usin, that makes our self-esteem
hard to reach.
But if we let video games becomethe therapy, these become life
lessons.
Like Valkorion said in Star WarsThe Old Republic in that classic
(12:20):
trailer for Knights of theFallen Empire.
Someone can have anything ifthey will only sacrifice.
And that idea also echoesthrough many different fandoms.
It's the law of equivalentexchange in Full Metal Alchemist
that you have to give somethingto get something.
And if that becomes the drivingforce of your work ethic, what
(12:44):
is there that you cannot do?
But those ideas are all over theplace in the DNA of video games.
All right.
They give us ideas to inspireus, they show us that even a
high school kid in a personagame can defeat a corrupted god
and save the world and cleansethe broken psyche of the
(13:07):
collective subconscious thatCarl Jung talked about in
analytical psychology a hundredyears ago.
An idea from Psychology'sFoundation a hundred plus years
ago constantly comes back invideo games to give us something
special and new and amazing.
All right.
(13:27):
Video games can actually give usanything that we need to inspire
us to become better at things inlife.
We just have to look at thestories and unpack what they
mean.
Right?
Whether it's a horror game likeSilent Hill F, like I was
playing today, or Persona 3Reload, where we're going to
high school and then we're goinginto the psyche and we're
(13:50):
battling the demons and theneurotic tendencies of society
to make the world a betterplace, one person at a time, one
room at a time, one situation ata time.
When we're playing video games,we are experiencing something
therapeutic because it's goinginto our subconscious realm and
(14:10):
saying, you can do this.
This challenge was designed foryou to succeed and to feel
fulfilled and to feel like youwere good enough just because
you made it to that final roomand found the princess.
So if a counselor wants to handyou a switch and say, Let's play
the Legend of Zelda Breath ofthe Wild, find a shrine, and
(14:32):
talk about the problem-solvingprocess to get that missing
relic at the end of the room,right?
To eventually level up our heartcontainers, to level up our
stamina.
By working hard, we eventuallyget the things that we need to
go back into the wilderness andsucceed in life.
That's what gaining EXP is allabout.
(14:53):
That's what that's what it islike to level up.
Okay.
A counselor can do that.
If we're allowed to playcheckers and chess and
facilitate conversation witheach play, each turn.
Every time we put down a card inUno, we talk about the motion,
the emotional experience of whatit's like for that moment to
happen.
Every time we knock a tower downin Jenga, we talk about a time
(15:16):
where we fell short and how wepicked up the pieces.
The metaphor of picking uppieces.
Video games are about a metaphorof finding ourselves.
Just like therapy is a structurefor us to experience the
metaphors, find our archetypes,unravel the things that hinder
our self-esteem, find ourpersona, and then apply our
(15:38):
persona, our personality, ourarchetypes, our strategies, our
philosophies for life, and thengo live life better.
Do it better, feel better, loveyourself better.
We spend so much time talkingabout how much time did you
spend on video games and screenswhen everything else we do in
life is on screens.
It just doesn't make senseanymore.
(15:59):
It's not about being on ascreen, it's about what you do
being yourself, whether you'reon a screen or not.
And you know what?
We are allowed to relax too.
Relaxation can be therapybecause meditation can be
therapy, exercise can betherapy.
Any activity we elect forourselves to restore the
(16:21):
energies that get depleted whenwe exert our effort and
influence into the challengesthat we're given in life.
That is our therapy.
So if you're a counselor, letyour clients play a video game
and talk to you about whatthey're experiencing.
Let them play a match of Leagueof Legends in front of you, a
Fortnite, a Valorance.
Let them play Call of Duty, letthem play Breath of the Wild or
(16:44):
Tears of the Kingdom.
Let them show you Persona 3.
Let them talk to you about thephilosophical situations of
trying to save entiregenerations of people and Claire
Obscure Expedition 33.
Let them show you the outfit ontheir created character in Final
Fantasy XIV, Dawn Trail.
Let them talk to you about whyEndwalker might be more
enjoyable than Dawn Trail.
(17:06):
There is stuff in the psychethere that if everyone just
understood video games are aform of therapy, then maybe we'd
be having the rightconversations instead of being
worried about the merit ofchoosing to play a video game
for 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 180minutes, five hours.
I mean, how long did you watchNetflix today if you're
(17:27):
listening to this?
And why aren't we talking aboutthat?
How much did you spend replyingand updating your statuses on
social media?
Why aren't we talking aboutthat?
Why is it always video games?
All these things are aprojection of our psyche in our
inner world, trying to makesense of how we connect with the
world around us because theworld around us is digital.
(17:47):
And so part of what we are nowis digital.
So it is, in my opinion, as aperson who leads research task
force, edits books that aregoing to educate psychiatrists,
psychologists, and mental healthprofessionals across the country
(18:08):
and will influence legislationand policy across the world.
The video games are therapy.
They should be a part of ourtherapy, and when we play them,
we should open up our mindsinstead of saying, Oh, I hope
people don't judge me for how Iplayed this for this period of
time today.
I think people should be saying,I hope I get what I need out of
(18:29):
this play session.
Whatever that is.
A chance to enjoy things andrelax, a chance to accomplish
things, a chance to blow thingsup, a chance to forge
friendships and groups and takedown the bosses and save the
world.
Because you know what?
We need that energy in life.
We really, really do.
(18:50):
I hope everyone made it to theend of this conversation today.
It was so fun to give it to you.
If this is the kind of thingyou're excited by, follow me on
Twitch.
Check out the next stream,twitch.tv slash Dr.
Gameology.
Buy a copy of my book, TheGamer's Journey.
You can get it at the Dr.
Gamology Shopify store.
(19:13):
You know, you can follow me onall the social medias.
It's at Dr.
Gameology D-R-G-A-M-E-O-L-O-G-Y.
And next time you play a videogame, think about what it's
giving you and appreciate it.
And when you do that, alwaysremember to continue the
journey.
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