Sometimes I hear an argument, or maybe it’s more of a shibboleth; anyway, it runs: Mental health, or lack thereof, reflects the times. In precarious times like these, precarious mental health is basically symptomatic of a clear-eyed view of the world. To which I supply the corollary: If so, then psychology, the science of mental health and illness, must offer a privileged standpoint from which to understand this world and its sufferers–and then to help if we may by availing ourselves of the things that we’ve been studying here, video games and literature. Might games and play, read in the light of the literary tradition, offer something to the psychologist, and to the depressed, anxious, or otherwise world-bearing player?
Continue reading “Video Game Psychology in Review”Facing the Fear; Building the Future: Lobotomy Corporation and Processing Horror
Content Warning: Horror scenes/art, violence, depression/despair, cosmic horror, Nietzsche as interpreted by teenage boys, political stupidity (esp. capitol riots)
A Tribute to Games I Can’t Play
In January of 2016, I was living with my wife in our Pennsylvania apartment. I was in my third year of classes at Baptist Bible Seminary, but I’d hit a roadblock. I had borrowed as much as the government was willing to lend me, and I was no longer able to afford to take classes full time. In the fall I’d dropped from a full load of four-to-five classes per semester, to only one. I had started substitute teaching at a local private school to help make ends meet.
Then, one day my wife came home from work early and announced that she had just been laid off. The college where she had worked for five or six years had mismanaged its finances and was facing major changes going forward, starting by laying off dozens of staff members, including her.
I turned off the game I was playing, and haven’t ever turned it on again.
Continue reading “Facing the Fear; Building the Future: Lobotomy Corporation and Processing Horror”
Video Game Academy 