Advocacy: Games + Health
As an advocate for digital therapeutics, games and health, and increasing accessibility of mental healthcare, I often speak and publish on mental healthcare for adults, representation of mental health in games, and how to effectively use game and cognitive behavioral mechanisms to create mental health skills learning games. My advocacy includes:
Lectures & Interviews: I have spoken on games & health at international and local conferences for game designers, designers, psychologists, at at conventions, including the American Psychological Association (APA), the Game Developer’s Conference (GDC), Games for Change (G4C), and Serious Play (SP).
Academic Scholarship & Public Health Work: I write long-form papers on theory and research on within games and serve as a juror and evaluator of mental health representation in digital media
Resources for all: I share and circulate templates and informational resources from my lectures in free, online media that can be used by professionals and other interested parties
Lectures and interviews
I often speak on mental healthcare and functioning, particularly in how to adapt healthcare and skills learning in games, representations in existing games, and testing skills learning in games and personalized healthcare technology. Below are a number of organizations I’ve presented with.
Scholarship + Public health work
I have organized coverage of theory into professional writing for multiple publications, including writing on pop culture and psychological sciences for the Psychgeist series, where I’ve written on the representation of romance, intimacy, and gender, in the Witcher, Legend of Zelda, and within Taylor Swift’s music and also serve as the series editor for Final Fantasy VII.
In addition to this work, I often serve as a juror, consult, and work in conferences evaluating the content of games designed to target mental health representation in games.
Resources for all
From my undergraduate degree to the present, I've collected, created, and shared resources documenting what I understand about the psychological sciences, the related skills/structures for working in this field, and combination of these skills and work. I often organize these materials into handouts, pamphlets, and lectures. This section of the website is dedicated to collecting and sharing these instructional materials.
Romance in games - primer on unique mechanics