thread: 2006-01-04 : A Dangerous Idea for 2006
On 2006-01-09, Drew_rrr wrote:
Regarding the idea of Roleplaying games "changing" people...
15 years ago I used to game with a guy who was a Doctor in Psychology. For one of his research projects he had done a thing on "roleplayers".
His research suggested that roleplayers may deal with unusual crisis situation better than non-roleplayers. Why? According to him, because they had played through stressful situations in their imagination first. As a result they don't freeze up as much as non-roleplayers when confronted with an unusual and stressful situation.
Roleplaying is a powerful tool for helping people deal with all sorts of things.
The police and many other emergency services use roleplaying to train new officers in handling situations precisely because a person who has played through a senario before encountering it will be better able to deal with the situation without freezing up. Social services uses roleplaying to prepare social workers for dealing with abused children, etc. Roleplaying is often used as a tool in pyschoanalysis for precisely the same reasons.
Ok, we're not talking about RPGs here, but the idea is the same in many ways.(N.B these statements are regarding the UK, but I imagine it's the same in the US)
I'm definitely seeing a parallel with what Paul says. MLWM: Roleplaying through the breakdown of an abusive relationship a few times helps you deal with the actual breakdown of an abusive relationship, should you ever encounter it.
Drew
