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Let's Roll Play: Utilizing Dungeons and Dragons in Theory | Otter.ai

Let's Roll Play: Utilizing Dungeons and Dragons in Theory

Amber Watkins50min

Speaker 1

00:09

Hello and welcome to the thoughtful counselor, a podcast dedicated to bringing you innovative and evidence based counseling and mental health content designed to enhance your life. Whether you're a clinician, supervisor, educator, or a person wanting to learn more about the counseling process. We are here to demystify mental health through conversations with a wide range of counseling professional powerhouses. In each episode, you'll learn about current issues in the field, new science, and real life lessons learned from the therapy room. Thank you for joining us on our journey through the wide world of counseling. There's a lot to explore here. So sit back, take a deep breath. And let's get started.

Speaker 2

00:54

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the novel counselor podcast. This is Mickey white speaking today with Julia Stammen. Julia is a licensed professional counselor in Austin, Texas. She is the owner of heart of the realm of private practice that specializes and working with adults who self identify as geeks, gamers and misfits. Julia has been running d&d therapy therapy groups focused on anxiety and depression online since 2020. She's spoken at conventions such as PAX South and South by Southwest about d&d therapy and its benefits. Julia is also currently running intensive training groups for other mental health professionals who would like to run their own d&d therapy groups. And in the information today on the thoughtful counselor website, you'll be able to access her website where you can learn more about those trainings, especially if you're as excited about doing this as I am after today's podcast. Welcome, Julia.

Unknown Speaker

01:47

Hi, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2

01:49

Yes, I'm so glad you're here. So let's jump in. And just tell me a little bit about yourself and how you ended up in counseling?

Speaker 3

01:57

Sure, well, I am a licensed professional counselor in Austin, Texas. And I own my own private practice called Heart of the realm. And I've been in my own private practice for since basically the beginning of the pandemic, great time to open up the business, as some, some listeners might be able to relate to actually. But before all of that I you know, was kind of a weird kid in high school. And I like to have more in depth conversations with my, my peers, and my friends, I always wanted to like cut, cut through all the BS and get to the good stuff in terms of talking about life and relationships and philosophy and stuff like that. So I think from a pretty young age, I knew that I wanted to do something that felt a little bit more meaningful day to day. And that's a little bit how I got into studying psychology and undergrad, and then being lost with a bachelor's degree in psychology. I looked into what my options were for continuing education. And that's when I went to my master's program for counseling.

Speaker 2

03:16

Excellent. So how did you end up you self identified as kind of the the misfit geek and gamer in high school? And even maybe before that, and after that, right? How did you end up bringing d&d in to counseling?

Speaker 3

03:32

Yeah, I had a great supervisor after I graduated grad school, who helped kind of nurture my authentic self as a counselor and who I could see and specialize in. So I started out right after grad school, kind of focusing on college age, population and existential issues. And nobody was really searching for that. And so I didn't get a lot of hits. So I was I was doing my own kind of soul searching at that point of like, Who do I want to see? Who do I want to be? What do I want to be known for? Even in the field and in our little kind of community here in Austin. And so through some of that exploration, personally, and through my supervisor, I realized like, well, I just want to see people who are like me, and I had been playing Dungeons and Dragons or d&d since high school, myself, and so it seems pretty much like a no brainer to start seeing geeks and gamers myself. But at the time, the obstacle was kind of like, Is that even possible? Can I do that? I feel like it has to be such a clinical focus like anxiety or depression. So when I when that door was opened for me to focus on a population It was, oh, yeah, this is definitely when I do what I want to do. And then I started looking up a geek therapy, and was delighted to find a whole community of other geek therapists who were already sort of paving the way for that and individual work, but also in groups. The sort of origin story there in the US anyway, as I know, it is that a lot of folks started to focus on social skills groups with RPGs, or role playing games. And teens are kiddos basically. And so I took that and ran with it, like, how can I adapt this for adults?

Speaker 2

05:46

Yeah, as you say that it's making me think about the benefits of activity therapy for adolescents. And that we tend to make this distinction between when you turn, you're 17. And when you turn 18. Now all of a sudden, you're an adult. But all of those things that are so exciting as a teenager don't necessarily go away after you turn 18. And then even in your 20s 30s, so on and so forth. That it's it seems almost a cultural phenomenon, as well.

Speaker 3

06:22

Yeah, I mean, if you think about it, when you're a teenager, the typical teenager anyway, is worried about being cool. And so by the time you're already a teenager, you've might have already hit those obstacles of, hey, I need like an alibi to play, or I need a reason or need to, like find the right kind of group to be vulnerable and play in. So I think even once you're a teenager, you've already started to, like, kind of hide that part of yourself that wants to play. And so I think adults in some ways, almost need it more need more permission to play, and to have spaces where they can go and be like, Wait, this is a thing. d&d therapy is a thing I can I can go do this. And it actually helps to bring in folks who are maybe on the fence about therapy in general, or even specifically, group therapy.

Speaker 2

07:16

Yeah, so can you speak a little bit about some of the benefits of group therapy with this kind of structured format?

Speaker 3

07:28

Yeah, so the structured experience of it, it's almost like an expressive arts intervention, or like sandtray, very similar, where it's sort of theory agnostic, you can put in whatever your clinical theory is into, you know, the intervention of gaming in counseling groups. So there's a lot of different opportunities to apply your own theory and case conceptualization into the story of the end. Lots of different ways to do that, I won't even get into all of them, because that could be an hour and of itself. But like, for example, you can put it into the character creation, like what does an individual member want to work through in terms of their individual character arc, and then the characters that you play as the GM or the game, Master, counselor, and then the story itself, like the plot and the themes that they interact with? Those all have potential theme explorations? In?

Speaker 2

08:38

Yeah, so you're mentioning themes and character development, and kind of the storylines are adventuring. And I'm curious about if you could just explain a little bit about the process of Dungeons and Dragons, kind of generally, but then how you bring that into your work with clients.

Speaker 3

09:04

Yeah, so Dungeons and Dragons is a collaborative storytelling game at its core. So there, it's similar to a board game for folks who are not familiar, but there are it's there's even more freedom to it. Right? All you really need is a paper and pencils, and some dice or some kind of random agent. And you just basically tell a story together. And so similar to like improv or something like that.

Speaker 2

09:36

So can you speak to the therapeutic process of integrating Dungeons and Dragons, what that looks like kind of from a first session to termination.

Speaker 3

09:53

Absolutely. So we, once we've once I've put a group together and I've done my pre group consulting sessions and everything like that, we all have our first session together, which is called the session zero in the tabletop role playing game community, where you're not starting in gameplay yet, you're just kind of setting up the game. So there's a lot of conversation around consent of what story elements you're okay with in the game or not. Okay, within the game. There are conversations about the table rules or, you know, in therapy speak like the group agreements. And so there are a lot, there's a lot of conversation that starts from the beginning about like, what kind of game do we want to play together? What are our expectations? What are our limits. And so I think that in and of itself, is really therapeutic in some ways to have a space where you can have this model of expectations and boundaries and relationships.

Speaker 2

10:55

And that's even really reminiscent, as you're saying that I'm thinking about just forming groups, and even the the expectations that we have for group norming, and forming and how that all comes together and seems to lend itself very well to this process of the game, as is.

Speaker 3

11:17

Absolutely, it's almost more explicitly talked about, and, you know, breaking that kind of fourth wall to talk about the process of therapy, in that case. And then we can get into character creation itself. And so there are a number of different ways that game counselor can walk that through with the clients, it kind of just depends on your style, and your approach and everything like that. But I put a lot into this. So it's really front loaded with the metaphors and storylines and challenges that their character could go through. And they target that through the archetypes. So the archetypes being like, what is your game class? So do you want to play like a robot that super sneaky and can like stealth around things? Or do you want to play a bard that's like very in, you know, folks faces and is charismatic and charming and sing songs, you know, those are the archetypes that they can choose from? And so there's already sort of grist for the mill there with what types of characters they choose for themselves. And I like to incorporate like, what is the sweet spot of like, your comfort class or archetype there? And what is your growing edge? As you start to get some them to think about, like, what do they want to get out of this experience? And how can we support that through character creation?

Speaker 2

12:52

Tell me what that experience is like trying to get people to move out of their comfort zone, or I imagine like, pull back so you can actually be present in the game.

Speaker 3

13:02

Yeah, in my experience, it's usually pullback, right? For whatever reason, because I think I get them excited about, like, there's so much potential here. And I'm so so pumped about exploring these things. But then when it comes time to actually play, that's when clamming up could happen. And like, oh, I don't actually know how to play a super charismatic Bard, right? So a good example, is somebody's coming in with the goal, we we help workshop together during the console, what are your goals? And how can you apply them to this context? So you know, somebody comes in with a goal of wanting to be more assertive, and we start to plant the seed of like, how can we put that in your character. So one, like potentially obvious way might be to play a high charismatic, class or character. But for some, like I mentioned, if roleplay is not, if role play is new to them, then that might actually put them outside of their kind of window of tolerance, or take them out, or they might like, even start to mildly dissociate, or like any of the coping skills that somebody might have, or have developed over time, could start to be to come into play. So that's when I might direct them to be like, Well, I love this, this idea, is there something that we can some way that we can put this idea of assertiveness in some other aspect of your character, so that you don't feel like you're gonna freeze up when it comes time to actually playing?

Speaker 2

14:44

So you're really trying to figure out why what what's going to be within somebody's window of tolerance and then also what is going to be something that's going to translate

Speaker 3

14:57

outside of the room. Mm. Yeah, exactly. It's an art. And you know, like, we don't always get it completely right each time because it's a fairly new modality. And there, there is research being done, which is really exciting about using d&d therapy. But it's very new. And there are a lot of things that we can't kind of control, right, because it's its story, its creativity. Its its kind of art in a way. And so we do our best to provide that container. But there are so many like twists and turns along the way that that pop up.

Speaker 2

15:39

Yeah. And you mentioned that in the initial console with somebody trying to identify their goals. Tell me a little bit about that setting, and what that looks like, and how you decide how to form even these adventuring parties together?

Speaker 3

15:59

Yeah, so the way I do it is I try to target adults with anxiety and depression. So that's my kind of clinical focus there, that everybody that is coming in already relates to experiencing anxiety, depression, they want to play d&d, and you know, they're adults. And so that that's already a pretty good start as far as like a niche for forming a group. But some of the things that I rule out, if that's part of what you're curious about is some of the classic group therapy ones, you know, if somebody's an active crisis, or you know, attendance might be an issue, like some of those sorts of things, but particularly with role playing games, RPGs, it's, I do look at any kind of like active psychosis in particular, just because it can be hard to you know, it's it's a, I'm not trained on it specifically. And so maybe somebody that is, could work with that, and have that appropriate training and consultation and, etc, to be able to negotiate those specific challenges. But for somebody like me, that's not trained in it, the separation of your characters persona and US person can be a little bit tricky. So that would be something that I roll out as well. I do like a mixed experience level group, though. So if somebody's never played d&d before, and then I get another person that has played for 10 years, I actually love to put them in the same group, because they can learn from each other. And for the advanced players, the beginners are great for like, beginner's mind sort of a thing. So they'll start to do things that you just never would have imagined that they would have done in a scenario or an encounter. And so that can be really fun.

Speaker 2

18:02

You just get all of these really interesting ideas and stories and just sometimes off the wall. Yeah, that's something new.

Speaker 3

18:14

Oh, I delight in my clients decisions all the time. I'm like, you want to do what? Okay. Like, I've never thought about it that way. But I love it, you know. And it's, it's, it's cool for me to write. As somebody who's played for a long time, it's really cool to see. If you create that right environment for them, how their creativity flourishes, it's really cool.

Speaker 2

18:39

Yeah, and that seems to really tap into a lot of the expressive arts and even some of the I'm thinking, even the neuroscience of it of brain plasticity and creativity in that as well.

Speaker 3

18:51

Absolutely. Yeah. I would love to see some research on that, in particular.

Speaker 2

18:57

So you mentioned research. Can you tell me a little bit about some of the research that's out there, but then also what had been some of your experiences with client development?

Speaker 3

19:11

Sure. So I recently was doing a bit of a, you know, dig into some of the research that's out there because of the trainings that I offer for other clinicians. And so I do have those off the top of my head. So some of the research that's been done is benefiting social skills, which is what I kind of mentioned earlier of, as far as the origins almost of this application. And so they are, they're finding RPG therapy to be great for social skills. They've done some studies for autistic folks but also just like neurotypical folks. There are different studies with like depression and kind of building resilience with RPGs just great. Building confidence. Since I think one study in particular, and I'll have to send you some references, so that folks that are listening in are also researchers can look this up. But there is one study that specifically showed increased assertiveness and boundary setting, which was like, Yes, I love that, because it just comes up naturally, for folks that I see. As well as empathy. Empathy is a really cool one, because, you know, there's like, kind of the theory of mind aspect of it. But there's also just like, General, sort of moral reasoning, and empathy skills that is developed through role playing as somebody else, and the collaborative aspect of working together as a team in these in these settings.

Speaker 2

20:53

Yeah, so let's, I want to dig into that a little bit. Because I'm curious, really curious about how you navigate kind of the chaotic neutral or chaotic evil or lawful, lawful good traits that that come up and how clients choose those, how they navigate those what some of maybe your boundaries are as the game counselor, and in setting that up.

Speaker 3

21:22

Really good question. So I happen to mostly ignore but I don't actually ask folks what their alignment is, whenever we create characters. Sort of intentionally, right. So there's a big debate, actually, in the geek therapy world about playing evil characters. As you can imagine, it's an interesting topic. And some people see the clinical application for playing an evil character, sort of this idea of, you know, you're not really that bad, or that you can be forgiven for some of the things that you've done. So that I think the idea is like, the arc would be that you're evil to turn good, right. And then other folks, don't encourage it in a therapy setting. Because it goes against this idea of the collaborative experience, or like the group goals or group needs, which I'm a little bit more on the latter side of the debate. I can see the application in theory for the evil character, but I think you would have to be very specific about talking to your group members beforehand, in that session zero, like I mentioned, getting everybody on board and able to sort of consent or CO create this idea of what kind of game experience they want to have.

Speaker 2

22:49

Yeah, so it sounds like really taking into account. What's the purpose of the therapeutic group? And what is the what are the goals? And what is the purpose, I can see what you mentioned that arc of moving from evil to good or even, like self worth things tied in there, and how that can be a really great application, but it would need to be very intentional. on your end, very intentional on the groups and because that can also with some of my experience with you know, chaotic, evil and evil characters in general has been exciting to say the least.

Unknown Speaker

23:33

Exciting in the bad way. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2

23:35

For sure. It just, it can devolve into chaos.

Speaker 3

23:39

Yeah. Yeah. So you know, as the game counselor, there are definitely moments where you have to set limits as well. You know, you in a pinch, you can kind of rely on your own boundaries and say, like, hey, you know, I'm not comfortable with you, you know, blowing up that tavern or whatever it is, or, you know, desecrating that body to give some some kind of extreme examples. But I think that there are also some sort of world building or, or like, collaboration, techniques that you can do to get everybody sort of invested in the world that they're in or invested in the characters that they're interacting with, that they're not in control of. To help them to feel like they're, again, part of that story and part of the collaboration of that.

Speaker 2

24:33

Yeah, so when, when you find yourself kind of getting towards the end of the party or the end of of the group or the adventure? What does that tend to look like towards the end? So we talked about the beginning, but what about the end?

Speaker 3

24:53

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you know, before I do skip to the end, the middle part actually A warrant some some discussion too, because that's where a lot of the the meat of the work happens as well. Being able to adapt what the story is, what the encounters that they're going through are and kind of like, again, their character arc or development over time, that is, can be really important for the game counselor to be aware of and be able to be dynamic and flexible with. So that the, like your own idea as the game counselor of what the story is, doesn't take away from the group's needs, right? Like you have to be really flexible with what like, in my head, right, me as Julia, like, thought that they were going to go down this one path. So of course, they went down the complete opposite path. But how can I still How can I adapt and encourage them to go down that path that they wanted to go down and still have things be interesting engaging down this other path. But at the end, so the way that I structure my groups is we do 12 week sessions. And if that group wants to continue on, then we call it a chapter two, and we'll do another 12 weeks, and so on, basically, until it makes sense to stop or folks are ready to, to leave and move on. So my endings look a little differently depending on what the group's feeling, basically.

Unknown Speaker

26:34

That's a lot of flexibility on your end,

Unknown Speaker

26:37

so much flexibility.

Speaker 2

26:40

So what do you say are some of the traits and qualities that would make somebody an effective gain counselor?

Speaker 3

26:47

Flexibility? Did I mention that it's funny, I actually recently came up with a little strength inventory for a for gyms. And I'm not gonna list them out for you, because there's a lot, but it's kind of that combination, right? Primarily, it's being able to wear these two hats of one hat being the group facilitator and group counselor, and the other hat being a good GM. And so all of the typical, like group leadership skills, and counseling skills, and being able to focus on process, and all of those things. Plus, you know, the sort of mechanics and improvisation and generosity. And I mean, even just some of the cognitive things like multitasking or keeping different maths in your head, and those kinds of things that are on the GM side of things. So

Speaker 2

27:52

it's a lot. Yeah, I, I imagine that it can be exhausting at times, for sure.

Speaker 3

27:59

You know, it's honestly the opposite. It's very energizing for me, and I'm an introvert. And so my partner has actually even mentioned, you know, after a group, it's always like, Oh, you have so much more energy after groups versus individual clients. As I say, that's true, it's very energizing, it does take a lot more work outside of the actual, like, direct client time, because I'm prepping and I'm, you know, developing the story and making those adjustments as I can outside of session. So it's, it's definitely like a passion thing, right? Like, I think you kind of have to, you definitely have to like it.

Speaker 2

28:44

Well, you definitely, you definitely have to like it. And you definitely have to sounds like have a lot of experience to be able to pull from as well.

Speaker 3

28:54

It helps it helps a lot. I don't think that you have to be this expert in either on either side wearing either hat necessarily before you start. But I do think that over time, it helps a lot.

Speaker 2

29:10

And just taking taking that time, like you mentioned the the outside client time, or the outside session time takes a lot. So I want to I want to shift for a minute you mentioned you started your private practice and 2020 which was an exciting time to jump into the world of private practice, but also let you be very poised for for offering telehealth. And I'm curious because I imagine most of your d&d experience was in person prior to the pandemic I think a lot of people's were and now we have more options for online facilitation telehealth in general. Can you speak a little bit about like your process moving into telehealth and specifically bringing DNA DEA into telehealth and what that looks like.

Speaker 3

30:03

Sure, yeah, I had zero experience online as a counselor before the pandemic. And so that was an interesting shift. My own experience. Well, I mean, the first two weeks of the pandemic, I was like, Well, that was it. I guess being a counselor is fun. But I've got to find some other career now, because it you know, everybody was canceling during those two weeks, and I truly thought that I would have to find another profession for a hot minute there. Then, of course, it ended up being the opposite. A few months in, everybody was like, I need to be in counseling right now, what is going on? Including myself. And so I mostly did a frantic search online, as far as how do you do telehealth? ethically? How do you do it practically? And I came across, I think it's client centered tech, or person centered tech, one of those two, I know that the the owner of of that actually died recently. It's really sad. But those videos were a lifeline, for sure. For me, like I watched everything that I could as far as switching to online and learned a lot through those, like CDs basically.

Speaker 2

31:27

So you moved on, moved your entire practice online, and then started researching and integrating d&d. So what does that look like? I know on your website, it mentions you use a specific kind of platform or software to facilitate that. So what does that really look like in this online virtual telehealth world?

Speaker 3

31:52

Yeah, so I do us we'll do video platform. So I'll use Zoom these days for the group for the actual video where we meet. So and then we also use rule 20, which is a virtual tabletop platform, or VTT, for short, where the actual map is housed, or their character sheets are housed. And some of the roles that they make with their virtual dice are housed in all in that one website. So I prep folks during our pre pre group consultation to that it's best to have two screens, whether that's two monitors, or just a tablet, and a laptop, or a phone and a laptop, or whatever, so that they can have both screens up at the same time. My own personal d&d games moved to rule 20, during the pandemic, so I had some experience playing with it as just a player, just a casual friend games, there's definitely a learning curve. And it's not super user friendly, unfortunately. But it is something that I've spent a great deal of time on at this point. So I'm familiar with the ins and outs of it mechanically speaking.

Speaker 2

33:11

So you, you have the group going, and then you also have this, essentially an another group going at the same time, the the therapy process and the DND process, and then they they merge together, which I'm really super curious to get into the really fun meat of this of what are some of your favorite experiences having done DND therapy?

Speaker 3

33:40

Who the good question. I, it's kind of hard to choose. Because, you know, if they're group practitioners out there, you know that sometimes you just get a really good group. And it's like, so cohesive, and it just clicks. And it's so nice. And I, I've been fortunate enough to have several of those. And they're usually the ones that want to keep going into chapter two and chapter three, and so on. So I think once you have the right setting in the setup, like that cohesion can go a long way in fostering folks creativity, had a really great moment, one time where a client was working through abandonment themes, more or less, and was really having a really hard time trusting the group. As you can imagine, it's just that's part of that process and presentation and over time, with a lot of repetition and a lot of, you know, trust building skills. There was this really cool moment when the client had had privately, you know, spoken to me as the game counselor that they wanted to go through a, like a loss of somebody in their backstory. And so we kind of talked about that a little bit one on one, which is sometimes part of the practice, just depending on how complex those those issues are. And I had put in the story at one point that they found this like tattered vest of this, you know, person from their backstory, and tried to make it pretty clear that there was like, sort of battle scars on the vest like it was torn up and everything like that. And the, their character found the vast and didn't say anything to the rest of the group. for a really long time, several sessions had passed. And then at the very end,

Speaker 2

36:02

and just to clarify on that they found the vest as part of this storyline that all of the group was present for, but then they didn't say anything about what the vest was, or anything that had to do with that ugly.

Speaker 3

36:16

Yeah, like, they didn't specify the significance of the best. And then there was this moment, during actually one of the final kind of battle encounters of this chapter. And they had another character had accidentally found the best, um, it had, like, kind of fallen out of their bag on the battlefields. And it was this like, big dramatic moment, because it was like this confrontation of what is this tattered vest that you're carrying around with you, you know, like, what's going on here. And there, meanwhile, they were literally fighting a monster. They defeated that monster. And when everything had grown quiet, they had confronted that character, right? What's What's up with this vest. And then they shared, they shared, you know, what the vest was, and who this person was that they had lost. And it was really beautiful moment, and they had all spontaneously decided. Let's bury the vests, like, let's take some time, and this belt battleground and bury the vest. And they did and everybody was crying. And it had nothing to do with anything that I had written in the plot for them. This is all their own safety of kind of being creative and going for it as far as what, you know what they needed. And so the idea and what we processed afterwards was, well, this character doesn't need that person who owned the vessel anymore, because they have this group of friends now. And so that's kind of how it related to the abandonment. Challenges is like, hate this person that used to mean so much to them, and that they kind of put their worth into is no longer as as powerful because they're able to like, move forward. That was really fun.

Speaker 2

38:32

I really appreciate you sharing that even as your you shared it, I found myself getting goosebumps, because a it felt even just how you were describing it felt so powerful. I love the psychodrama of this approach as well.

Speaker 3

38:48

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. There are some other fun moments to another group that has really good cohesion. It has become this running joke that somebody is playing basically, like one of the animal races that you can play. And the joke, the running joke is that tackling people is their love language. Because every time there's some kind of conflict or something like that's how they ease the conflict is that it's like, I'm gonna go in and tackle you know, and then so they have to like, they've agreed that they will contest each other on that roll. And so they like basically roll to see who can tackle each other and to the ground. And it's very, like brotherly love, sort of, like, you know, understanding and it's, it's really it's really sweet to see them do that.

Speaker 2

39:42

Yeah, and just to see people relating in that way, that especially for the, you know, the self identified geeks, gamers and misfits that emotional intimacy and vulnerability is very, very hard. Whether that's from, from previous experiences being bullied or experiencing trauma, or you mentioned also working with folks who are autistic or who are neurodivergent. And then just the, I think the societal disconnection that happens there because they're, they're perceived, in a negative way. And even the stigma of, of geek culture, in and of itself lends itself to that.

Speaker 3

40:32

Yeah, absolutely. And that's where I find it important to, you know, as a game counselor, I think you, you have to play along with them in some, in some fashion, like, you're not entirely there with them on their level, but you, you've got to, you know, show that it's a safe place to play. And so you can use sultry voices or gestures or, you know, laugh with them and things like that. And so, that's a really important part of modeling that it's okay to, to be a geek and to be in this space. And every once in a while, in a lot of my groups, we will just be like, this is therapy, like we're in therapy right now. Like, what?

Unknown Speaker

41:17

There's, like you almost forget, it's a counseling group.

Speaker 3

41:20

Exactly, exactly. Yeah. And so that's, that's the nice part about the cadence of we like check in out of character, we, the bulk of the session is the gameplay. And then we always debrief and process out of character at the end. So, you know, it's not like we stay in character the whole time.

Speaker 2

41:44

So you mentioned creating these these storylines, and that they, they have a tendency to create a story of their own, which is so cool. And just such a such a creative process, especially for kind of an expressive arts nerd that I am, too. But there's also something you mentioned about those storylines, what what kind of storylines? Do you gravitate towards? What have you found to be really helpful?

Speaker 3

42:12

Yeah, that's a great question. There is a module, which is basically just a story like a starting point for a story for DND. out there called gardens of fog. It is not technically for therapy for liability reasons. But it is a great kind of jumping off point that I've used, which the premise that I take from it is that you're going inside of somebody's mind, in the in the world that needs help. And so once you go into somebody's mind, or dreamscape, or MindScape, it's like, well, you can do pretty much anything with that, like, what are you going to find in somebody's mind?

Speaker 2

42:52

Yeah, almost what are you going to find inside of your own mind? And it's kind of a meta parallel process happening there?

Speaker 3

42:59

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I take that and run with it. Like, primarily, it's actually a nice added bonus of the distance, like therapeutic distance of while you're helping somebody else out with, you know, a similar struggle or, you know, a challenge that might be flatting, for you to feel like you're going through.

Speaker 2

43:24

Yeah, that the power of the therapeutic distance. And I imagined to that, through that process, eventually, you see, some folks come to own their experience, similar to the the experience of the vest and bearing the vest that you mentioned, that they they then connect, really, in a very meaningful way how it connects to their, their life.

Speaker 3

43:49

Absolutely, yeah. And the cool thing about again, that parallel of expressive arts is that they might have come up with or come up with a metaphor or meaning to that, that I could have never seen if it was just left up to me to interpret. And so they'll they'll find, you know, those kind of pockets of meaning everywhere. It's almost like a placebo effect, right? Of if you kind of tell them, Okay, we're in this therapy space, like it's a therapy game, then they're like, they're looking for it, you know, and they're looking and they find in places that I don't even know that they're there. We're

Speaker 2

44:26

Oh, which is just such a, it's one of the things I love about counseling. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3

44:33

The stories and encounters is one of my favorite parts about it, for sure.

Speaker 2

44:39

When I imagine it also gives you a US a dedicated space to really use your creativity and get to engage in your process to Yeah,

Speaker 3

44:51

no, absolutely. Yeah. If anything, it's I have to sometimes remind myself to step out of the immersion a little bit, especially in Those really punchy storyline moments or character development moments, you know, I am probably a lot more in it with them than, you know, I would be maybe necessarily in an individual session, so I have to remind myself to step back out and keep that counselor hat firmly on.

Speaker 2

45:22

There is a bit of research and access out there, outside of of course, your workshop. That's a 10 week learning process experiential learning process that you can find on Julia's website. There's also a couple books that are out there, one just came out recently, tabletop role playing therapy a guide for the clinician Game Master by Meghan a Connell, there is also another book that just came out this is an increasingly popular modality of therapy, which is therapeutically applied role playing games, the game to grow method by Elizabeth Kilmer, Adam Davis, jarred Kilmer and Adam John's, which is an excellent, I think it's going to be an excellent addition to this research and this literature game to grow is a great website also link a lot of this into the thoughtful counselor website for folks resources, if you're interested, game to grow. There's also geek therapy, and geek therapeutics that offer a lot of CDs and information and discussion boards and connections for folks. A couple articles that are also really good, like your clients fight dragons, so looking at therapeutic utility of Dungeons and Dragons, and also a great article on privilege, power, and Dungeons and Dragons. So how we address systems and privilege and power within the counseling room and doing that using Dungeons and Dragons, which is pretty cool. One last thing that I'm curious about, before we kind of wrap up today is what what would be some some advice that you would give to clinicians that are interested in incorporating some of these creative outlets, because I know, we've talked a lot about, or primarily about Dungeons and Dragons. But I've also seen some use of magic the gathering or Pathfinders, other tabletop role playing games. There's also other things like using Minecraft or second life or even the Sims. And there's some things with animal crossing that are kind of side by side playing and engaging in this therapeutic process. So how would you encourage or what would you encourage folks to do that are interested in merging these pieces of themselves?

Speaker 3

48:03

Well, first of all, do it. I will be your cheerleader through all of it. I think it's a I had mentioned, it's a new sort of modality in the field. And so I think that's intimidating for a lot of folks. But I want you to know, you're not alone in that interest. And then, you know, finding a way to incorporate it into your therapy work. And you might be surprised what's already out there, doing a good solid, you know, internet search on these different ways of applying the different games and therapy, you might be surprised about what is actually already out there and not having to reinvent the wheel for those things. And there are communities online too, that will talk your ear off in collaborating and helping you to come up with different ideas.

Speaker 2

48:57

Excellent. Well, thank you so much for sitting down with me today and talking about bridging these passions and really creating, creating a really creative space that intentionally is inviting for folks that have really been left out of a lot of therapeutic processes. Of course, thanks

Speaker 3

49:18

so much for having me really had fun talking about it and I'll talk about it anytime.

Speaker 1

49:40

Thanks again for tuning into the thoughtful counselor today. We hope you enjoyed the show. This podcast is made possible through our partnership with concept, Palo Alto University's Division of Continuing and Professional Studies. Learn more about the thoughtful counselor and some of the other amazing continuing education offerings provided by concept at Palo Alto, you dot EDU forward slash concept as always if you are a fan of the show we would love to hear your feedback and review on Apple podcasts or wherever you subscribe

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