What is Therapy Actually?

Researching the therapeutic process in advance of attending a session, most of what I found was to me unbearably vague - as was my therapist. They talk about integrating personalities and getting in touch with your feelings. They talk about how they won't give you the answers, the answers come from you. They talk about a moment of realisation and personality change. They talk about a lot of things, but the total message to me was something like a magician explaining that what you just saw was a trick. He'll show you this incredible outcome, you ask how he did it, and he says 'Oh, it wasn't really magic, there was a trick to it' then refuses to tell you the trick. You're left knowing that this person is pulling the wool over your eyes, and wondering what advantage it is to them to do so. Why not just talk straight?

I'm the guy that wants to know what the trick was, and I'm going to do my best to describe my experiences directly. This is no parlour trick (though some tricks are employed in the process).

Irrational Investigator Demo Released!

I stopped development on the Irrational series some years ago, because I got sick of designing logic puzzles. However, I was very proud of the demo we put together for Investigator. It moves the gameplay of Redux into a more graphically and world-driven environment, and massively polished the accessibility. I genuinely think it's worth a play.

Thanks again to my contributors, Mikko Tarmia, Martin Camargo and Chris Burrows.

It's my hope over the coming years or so that I can turn out some new indie games of my own. I currently have a functioning demo of a school management sim, and I'll keep you posted as things develop.

It's here if you fancy playing Investigator it's at: https://t.co/WyG4Fv9GDW

On Masculinity & Refusing to Seek Help

This is the second part of an ongoing series describing my experiences with learning about psychology and going into therapy. Here I talk a bit about how old ideas around masculinity can prevent men from seeking help.

Asking for help was fundamentally incompatible with the identity I had drawn up for myself

I'm not going to go into detail about my childhood (but yes, I'm afraid a lot of it does come down to your relationship with your parents, school and peers), but I'm going to say that it was a fairly traditional masculine environment, by which I mean a culture which explicitly embraces the moral philosophy I highlighted in the previous post as problematic. A culture which denies the validity of feelings and the fundamental equality of people. A culture where the moral ideal is the strong, competitive, stoic male; and the inverse is the weak, the emotional. This dichotomy sets up a further moral ideal that encompasses the other two: the ideal of winning over the world.

On Psychological Health & Talking Therapy

Disclaimer: I'm writing the words I would have wanted to read some years ago. I know this will be obvious to some people, but it wasn't to me. Also I apologise if I slip into being too absolute. If you ever feel like I'm telling you what you ought to think or do, please forgive me, it's not what I intend, I just got over excited.

Two years ago I started going to talking therapy (I went for one year). I went privately because I was offered highly targeted, formulaic options on the NHS (eg addiction therapy, cognitive behavioural therapy etc), and I figured that the problem I was trying to overcome was more complex and integral than this set of behaviours or that one. I may have a substance abuse problem, and some people may only have a substance abuse problem, but for a lot of us the problematic behaviours are symptoms of the bigger picture.

Two Painters

Two master painters are in a forest clearing setting up their canvasses and easels. The sun is slicing through the thick foliage, illuminating a  scene they are each determined to capture before it fades.

The first painter looks out and sees the trees: the moss on the trunks, the sun glancing off the dew-covered leaves, the great cracks and rivulets running through the bark. The painter takes up their oils and begins to paint.

The second painters looks out and sees the forest: a great dark mass, split by shards of white from the sky. The painter takes up their pencils and begins to draw.

Some hours later they each sit back and breathe a deep breath, before turning to examine the other's work.

The first painter has focused on a handful of trees, which are presented in great detail. It is possible to make out the individual leaves, in which there are reflections of all the others.

The second painter has drawn the entire forest in a more abstract style. Individual trees are hardly discernible, instead there is a black clump stretching in all directions, delimited only by flecks of white sunlight.

The first painter looks at the abstract drawing, and then at the second painter, and there is something that the first painter doesn't say to the second. What they don't say is, "Your trees are merely a black pencil smudge, whereas mine are a full reflection of the real trees before us, and I therefore insist that you make your trees more like mine in order to improve your picture."

And there is something that the second painter doesn't say to the first. They don't say, "Your forest only has three trees in it, whereas mine is a full reflection of the real forest before us, and I therefore insist that you make your forest more like mine in order to improve your picture."

No, they don't say those things, because it would strike them as ridiculous. They didn't come to the clearing together so they could go home with two copies of the same picture. One of them sees the trees, while the other sees the forest. They came to the clearing together so that for a short while they could see both.

---------------------

In other news Subnautica finally comes out 23rd January 2018 on Steam. It's actually going to happen this time. I can't wait. It's been over two years.

Necessary Bi-Annual Update to Prove I'm Not Dead

Recently I have been continuing to work on Subnautica, taking some time away from games to focus on some other things, and been constantly, morbidly, but productively fascinated by Trump. Once I have something more interesting to report, I'll do so. That is all for now.