Electronic games can help treat mental health conditions, but studies that would enable their development in a scientific environment and address possible addiction concerns are still lacking
Personally, I’ve found immersive roleplay in video games to be incredibly therapeutic. As well as creating some distance from personal trauma and being able to kind of exist in a space outside of yourself, it creates opportunities to have experiences that you could never (and potentially should never) have in real life.
It’s an opportunity to experience a kind of emotional catharsis in a safe environment where others are on board with playing out intense feelings. It can be a space where you can push your own comfort zone and stretch your confidence and capabilities.
I’ve managed to work through stuff that it would have taken me forever to unpack if I didn’t get to repeat patterns in roleplay and really see how they play out in a way that was harder in my own life.
I’ve gotten so much better at establishing boundaries and seeing when people are trying to push at them or ignore them, and I know how to handle that now without feeling powerless. I played a few villains and anti-heroes, and one of them picked up this habit of getting right up in people’s faces and saying hello; I’m nowhere near as brazen, but the practice made it much much easier to quickly develop a rapport with someone. Sometimes going to the laundromat feels like doing crowd work, which is great for someone with more than a few signs of thankfully currently mild agoraphobia. There are times when I do run into panic or anxiety when I’ve gotten myself out of it by sort of invoking the strength of one of those characters, because they’re not afraid of a damned thing and they’re me.
Anyway, video games are great but roleplay in the right game is absolutely next level. It’s like remembering dozens of incarnations or something. It’s wild and we don’t really talk about how wild it is because the outside world seems to view it as childish and embarrassing, which is a major loss for them.
Disclaimer: I’m writing it how I understood your comment through myself.
Personally, I’ve found immersive roleplay in video games to be incredibly therapeutic. As well as creating some distance from personal trauma and being able to kind of exist in a space outside of yourself, it creates opportunities to have experiences that you could never (and potentially should never) have in real life.
Exactly the opposite for me. I started playing games again (at around 17 after almost stopping while being 12-15 years old) to deal with, eh, teenage trauma, thinking that’ll help.
But it didn’t, it’s just like sleep, a way to skip time. You may skip years like that. It’s not good, actual life is still better.
It can be a space where you can push your own comfort zone and stretch your confidence and capabilities.
See, this is not true. Game characters work in different ways than real people.
Anyway I think most people have sufficiently vivid imagination for games to be inferior for this kind of thing.
Panic and anxiety in the actual life are the problem. Playing more video games or reading more fiction won’t help that, because these likely have a therapeutically findable reason.
Games consistently work in a discrete way, check these marks - you won, forget one - you lost, or something like that. Life doesn’t work like that. Life doesn’t break even when things break in your hands if you don’t stop. Also life is finite, we live and then we die. There are things impossible to get right, things impossible to understand, things impossible to try again, things where there’s nothing to understand.
I’ve definitely seen people who don’t seem to benefit at all from roleplay, but I’ve also seen it be a means for people to open up and develop confidence and self-determination. I think it really depends on the person and their life.
As far as sleep, it’s a lot more than a way to skip time. You do some of your best learning in your sleep.
Yes, my comment is hardly comprehensible now for me, I wouldn’t understand it if I weren’t, eh, me.
I meant that a bit of playing some games (where writing and roleplay and other things not too strongly defined by mechanics are more important) is good.
Just preparing for real life events or processing some trauma via games where you can win or lose depending on some clear objectives won’t work. Like Paradox strategies, these suck you in easily, but I don’t think there’s any good influence in them. Or like MMOs.
As far as sleep, it’s a lot more than a way to skip time. You do some of your best learning in your sleep.
Yes, bad way to say it.
I love the Tao te Ching. It’s good stuff.
Yes, it says what I was trying to say much clearer and many other smart things, so.
When I say roleplay, I don’t mean like a game with some roleplay-oriented objectives and scripted progress, or a bit of casual RP in a game between players who just run into one another.
I mean like months of deep immersion into characters and arcs that culminate in some really crazy and emotional stuff.
Personally, I’ve found immersive roleplay in video games to be incredibly therapeutic. As well as creating some distance from personal trauma and being able to kind of exist in a space outside of yourself, it creates opportunities to have experiences that you could never (and potentially should never) have in real life.
It’s an opportunity to experience a kind of emotional catharsis in a safe environment where others are on board with playing out intense feelings. It can be a space where you can push your own comfort zone and stretch your confidence and capabilities.
I’ve managed to work through stuff that it would have taken me forever to unpack if I didn’t get to repeat patterns in roleplay and really see how they play out in a way that was harder in my own life.
I’ve gotten so much better at establishing boundaries and seeing when people are trying to push at them or ignore them, and I know how to handle that now without feeling powerless. I played a few villains and anti-heroes, and one of them picked up this habit of getting right up in people’s faces and saying hello; I’m nowhere near as brazen, but the practice made it much much easier to quickly develop a rapport with someone. Sometimes going to the laundromat feels like doing crowd work, which is great for someone with more than a few signs of thankfully currently mild agoraphobia. There are times when I do run into panic or anxiety when I’ve gotten myself out of it by sort of invoking the strength of one of those characters, because they’re not afraid of a damned thing and they’re me.
Anyway, video games are great but roleplay in the right game is absolutely next level. It’s like remembering dozens of incarnations or something. It’s wild and we don’t really talk about how wild it is because the outside world seems to view it as childish and embarrassing, which is a major loss for them.
Disclaimer: I’m writing it how I understood your comment through myself.
Exactly the opposite for me. I started playing games again (at around 17 after almost stopping while being 12-15 years old) to deal with, eh, teenage trauma, thinking that’ll help.
But it didn’t, it’s just like sleep, a way to skip time. You may skip years like that. It’s not good, actual life is still better.
See, this is not true. Game characters work in different ways than real people.
Anyway I think most people have sufficiently vivid imagination for games to be inferior for this kind of thing.
Panic and anxiety in the actual life are the problem. Playing more video games or reading more fiction won’t help that, because these likely have a therapeutically findable reason.
Games consistently work in a discrete way, check these marks - you won, forget one - you lost, or something like that. Life doesn’t work like that. Life doesn’t break even when things break in your hands if you don’t stop. Also life is finite, we live and then we die. There are things impossible to get right, things impossible to understand, things impossible to try again, things where there’s nothing to understand.
I’d rather read Dao De Jing.
I love the Tao te Ching. It’s good stuff.
I’ve definitely seen people who don’t seem to benefit at all from roleplay, but I’ve also seen it be a means for people to open up and develop confidence and self-determination. I think it really depends on the person and their life.
As far as sleep, it’s a lot more than a way to skip time. You do some of your best learning in your sleep.
Yes, my comment is hardly comprehensible now for me, I wouldn’t understand it if I weren’t, eh, me.
I meant that a bit of playing some games (where writing and roleplay and other things not too strongly defined by mechanics are more important) is good.
Just preparing for real life events or processing some trauma via games where you can win or lose depending on some clear objectives won’t work. Like Paradox strategies, these suck you in easily, but I don’t think there’s any good influence in them. Or like MMOs.
Yes, bad way to say it.
Yes, it says what I was trying to say much clearer and many other smart things, so.
When I say roleplay, I don’t mean like a game with some roleplay-oriented objectives and scripted progress, or a bit of casual RP in a game between players who just run into one another.
I mean like months of deep immersion into characters and arcs that culminate in some really crazy and emotional stuff.
Like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB21Ii3XXNE
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=KB21Ii3XXNE
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.