00:00Roll for initiative. Against your brain?
00:03The first part is a line heard around the world these days.
00:07Tabletop role-playing games have hit the mainstream hard with shows like Stranger Things and podcasts like Critical Role.
00:14But getting to that second half, there is a new industry games like Dungeons & Dragons have found their way
00:21into. Healthcare.
00:22It is very difficult for the average person to go without knowing what these sorts of games are.
00:29Alyssia Merrick is a researcher at James Cook University in Australia who has studied the use of role-playing games
00:35in psychotherapy.
00:37In an interview with Straight Arrow, Merrick explains how role-playing in a fantasy world can improve your mental health.
00:44Through sort of the engagement of challenges within tabletop role-playing games, whether that be fighting a dragon or picking
00:52some locks,
00:53you engage with short-term successes, whether that be successfully cracking over the safe you were trying to get into,
01:03or dealing the killing blow to whatever monster you're fighting.
01:08In their research, Merrick writes,
01:10The games can build self-esteem and self-efficacy.
01:13The ability to sort through challenges in the game can apply to real-world issues.
01:18Self-efficacy refers to beliefs that one is capable of performing a specific behavior or set of behaviors when called
01:25for in challenging situations.
01:27Self-esteem describes a person's positive or negative attitudes and evaluations of themselves.
01:32Basically, it's what you believe you can do and how you think about yourself.
01:38You develop a sense of allyship, not only with the other people playing with you, but also the person running
01:45the game.
01:46And by taking on these characters, you learn, either directly or indirectly, different things about yourself and the others around
01:56you.
01:57Mackenzie Amstutz is a TTRPG enthusiast and an adult mental health therapist with Northwestern Medicine in Chicago.
02:04Because I think as adults we have this tendency to completely lock out imagination, exploration, just a sense of fun.
02:12And when we have that opportunity to explore things and to imagine something different,
02:18we're really working a part of our brain that is needed in adult life, like problem solving and creative thinking
02:25and stuff like that.
02:26As we put those parts of ourselves into the characters that we create, we're playing out these things that we're
02:32struggling with in real life,
02:33just in a setting that is more relaxed and has less like ultimate consequences.
02:39While role-playing games can be a useful therapy tool, experts warn you shouldn't read too much into a player's
02:47in-game choices.
02:48I would not use this as a tool for assessment or diagnosing or anything like that.
02:53I think it's more of a working therapy tool in helping people reach their goals.
02:59So we can learn a little bit from the client, the way that they play out their characters,
03:04but it's always something that needs to be motivated by them internally.
03:07It can be a really good tool for social skills, collaborative teamwork, questions of morality, what is a person responsible
03:22for,
03:23how to even just be kind to each other and hold space for others.
03:27While playing Dungeons and Dragons can't solve all problems, experts find role-playing games can be used to help achieve
03:36therapy goals.
03:37For Straight Arrow, I'm Robin Stoltzfus.
03:39For Straight Arrow, I'm Robin Stoltzfus.
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