Episode Thirteen: Representations of Mental Illness in Gaming

The Session Zero duo delve into mental illness and its function in game worlds. Join us in thinking a little deeper about the tropes and traditions of our hobby and how they sometimes mimic people’s lived experience of pain.

CW: Mentions of violence, mental illness, discussions of psychological trauma, brief mentions of suicidal ideation, brief mentions of sexual assault

Steve Discont can found on twitter at @bearlynormal, and Porter Green at @DagmarRugosa.

You can go to the following URLs or research articles to learn about some of the topics discussed in this episode:

Definition and types of mental illnesses: “Mental Health Conditions” by the National Alliance on Mental Illness

Moselhy H, F. (1999). Lycanthropy: New Evidence of Its Origin. Psychopathology, 32, 173-176. doi: 10.1159/000029086 (pdf here)

Blom, J.D. (2014) When doctors cry wolf: a systematic review of the literature on clinical lycanthropy History of Psychiatry, 25(1), 87-102. doi.org/10.1177/0957154X13512192

Definition of Trauma from the American Psychological Association

Mathieu, C., & Babiak, P. (2016). Corporate psychopathy and abusive supervision: Their influence on employees’ job satisfaction and turnover intentions. Personality and Individual Differences, 91, 102-106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2015.12.002

“Mental Health & Stigma” by Graham C.L. Davey, Ph.D.

The List of Madness Tropes on TVTropes

Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu

Onyx Path Publishing’s Chronicles of Darkness

Posthuman Studios’s Eclipse Phase

Evil Hat Productions’s Fate Core

Jenna Moran’s Chubbo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine