Why try RPG Therapy?

by

in
In my clinical work, I’ve come to see that fixed emotional patterns and mental constructs are at the heart of most pathology, and that imagination and the creative ability to conceive of a different way of living are at the heart of most effective cures. This understanding has driven my interest in modalities that leverage creative, playful, imaginative interpersonal constructs, including narrative therapy, drama, music, and art therapy, and depth-psychological practices such as dream interpretation and sand tray therapy. In exploring these methodologies it occurred to me that there is a practice with which I’m personally experienced that incorporates all these disciplines – tabletop roleplaying games.

I’ve conducted hundreds of sessions of role-playing games, both personally and professionally, most often acting as game-master – the writer, rulekeeper, and cast of non-player characters for the improvisational play that drives the interpersonal experience of a role playing game. As instructor of a number of Game Design seminars for primary-school students, I’ve even had experience modifying rules and framing to accommodate a classroom setting. In these contexts, the therapeutic value of these games seems manifestly evident – students showed creative problem solving, bravery in improvisational creativity, and formed emotional connections that persisted beyond the boundaries of the session.

RPG Therapy is a group therapy course leveraging a novel RPG system tailored to clients’ needs for socialization, emotional regulation, and navigation of interpersonal experience.

“This gives us our indication for therapeutic procedure – to afford opportunity for formless experience, and for creative impulses, motor and sensory, which are the stuff of playing. And on the basis of playing is built the whole of man’s experiential existence.”
-Donald Winnicott