The Impact of Games on Mental Health
Interview with Sierra Grandy
In this conversation, Sierra Grandy discusses her innovative approach to mental health through gamification and play. She introduces the concept of ‘Questify Your Life,’ a system that encourages individuals to view their personal journeys as quests, complete with goals, challenges, and rewards. Sierra emphasizes the importance of play in mental health, the need for self-directed living, and the value of community support. She shares insights on dealing with rejection sensitivity, the significance of creativity, and the role of acceptance in personal growth. The discussion highlights how gamification can empower individuals to navigate their mental health journeys with a sense of agency and fun.
Sierra is not alone in their struggle.
Gamification is One of Many Methods Used to Combat Mental Health
Play therapy research:
Play therapy is an alternative proposal of intervention on important issues related to children. Its implementation and value is widely known and is constantly expanding. The only condition for its implementation is the correct theoretical training of the professionals and the proper diagnosis.
Helping Children Through Play:
Play is natural and fun for children and an important part of learning and development. Play therapy is a therapy used by licensed mental health professionals to help children to better express their thoughts and emotions and to address a variety of problems. When children are unable to put into words their feelings or concerns, play can help them express themselves and learn ways to cope.
Play Therapy: Unpacking The Science of Fun
Play helps children to be creative, adaptive, better at problem-solving and connecting with others. It allows their imagination to run wild, try new experiences, make discoveries, and express themselves.
Sometimes, kids find it hard putting their feelings into words, but they can use play to communicate what’s going on inside, benefiting their mental health.
Play therapists provide a safe space where the child is free to play with toys, games, and art materials. The therapist observes the child’s play and interacts with them in a non-directive way, allowing the child to take the lead whilst exploring their feelings and process experiences.
NIH library: Autism and Developmental Language Impairments
Play-based interventions are used ubiquitously with children with social, communication, and language needs but the impact of these interventions on the mental health of this group of children is unknown. Despite their pre-existing challenges, the mental health of children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) should be given equal consideration to the other more salient features of their condition. To this aim, a systematic literature review with meta-analysis was undertaken to assess the impact of play-based interventions on mental health outcomes from studies of children with DLD and ASD, as well as to identify the characteristics of research in this field.
Play therapy meta analysis:
The efficacy of psychological interventions for children has long been debated among mental health professionals; however, only recently has this issue received national attention, with the U.S. Public Health Service (2000) emphasizing the critical need for early intervention and empirically validated treatments tailored to children’s maturational needs. Play therapy is a developmentally responsive intervention widely used by child therapists but often criticized for lacking an adequate research base to support its growing practice. A meta-analysis of 93 controlled outcome studies (published 1953-2000) was conducted to assess the overall efficacy of play therapy and to determine factors that might impact its effectiveness. The overall treatment effect for play therapy interventions was 0.80 standard deviations. Further analysis revealed that effects were more positive for humanistic than for non-humanistic treatments and that using parents in play therapy produced the largest effects. Play therapy appeared equally effective across age, gender, and presenting issue. (APA PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)
