Video Games and Mental Health

An exploration of the intersection between video games and mental health from the complementary perspectives of psychology and game design.

How do video games and mental health intersect from the perspectives of psychology and game design? In recent years, the topic of mental health has gained tremendous importance for the games industry, affecting both the applied and entertainment games sectors. The former draws from established practices in diagnostics, digital medicine, therapy, and self-help to develop innovative and accessible tools; the latter follows in the tradition of games d'auteur, addressing the topic of mental health from a personal perspective. The contributors to this volume inspect current trends and future perspectives related to these phenomena to inform the work of psychologists and game designers.

Auteur
Federico Alvarez Igarzábal is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health in Freiburg, Germany, working in the EU-funded project VIRTUALTIMES. His research focuses primarily on the temporality of video games from a formalist and cognitive-scientific perspective. He obtained his PhD at the Institute of Media Culture and Theatre of the University of Cologne and the Cologne Game Lab of the TH Köln in 2018 with his thesis »Time and Space in Video Games«.