Group therapy can be more engaging than you ever imagined! TTRPGs provide a safe space for players to embrace their creativity, develop social skills, and learn more about themselves. The benefits of role-playing games can be life-changingโespecially for neurodivergent, highly sensitive, and twice exceptional clients. Autistic players in particular can benefit from having a space to explore who they are, and how they want to engage with the world around them.
Players get to select a fictional character to base themselves on, and inherit the powers, values, and hardships of that character. Many autistic people are highly sensitive, and can struggle with emotional regulation more than allistic non-autistic individuals. Emotional regulation is the ability to navigate intense emotions without becoming overpowered or resorting to unhealthy coping mechanisms.
Factors that can help with emotional regulation include positive self-talk, flexibility, and the ability to reach out for support. In TTRPGs, players undergo a number of situations which challenge them to cope with frustration, perfectionism, and disappointment. In City of Mist, characters are torn between the ordinary and mythical parts of their personasโbetween their real-life identities, and the legends unfolding beneath the surface.
The challenges they face teach them to adapt to changing conditions, and encourage them to rise to their destinies. Many players take on issues which mirror ones they are facing outside of the game, and practice navigating their emotions from a comfortable distance. Within the safety of the game, players get a chance to see how setbacks make their characters stronger, and learn to accept success and failure as equally important parts of life.
In everyday life, each of us have a number of roles we step into at different times. For adolescents, some of these roles might be autistic, gifted, outcast, student, friend, artist, or geek. As we grow up, we get to decide which of these roles we want to hold onto, and which we want to let go of.
