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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Delemental" data-source="post: 598105" data-attributes="member: 5203">I decided I should probably chime in on this, seeing as I am a therapist.  Oh, and just to clear up one possible confusion:Psychologist - person with a doctorate degree in psychology.  Among their specialties is the training to administer certain tests (IQ tests, personality tests, etc).Psychiatrist - person with a medical degree specializing in psychology.  These are the folks who prescribe medications like Prozac.Counselor/Therapist - someone like me, who has a master's degree in psychology.  Similar training as the previous two, but we can't write prescriptions or administer an IQ test.Social Worker - like a counselor, but depending on the education they recieved, many social workers focus more on social systems.Keep in mind that these are very broad generalizations, and will vary greatly depending on an individual practitioner's training, work environment, and their treatment approach.  I just tend to see a lot of people confused over which is which (I've had people get upset with me when I tell them I can't prescribe their Prozac).The difference between therapeutic and recreational role-playing has already been discussed.  Therapeutic role-playing is usually used to work through difficult problems in a 'safer' environmment.  As far as someone playing 'themselves' in an RPG as a form of treatment, I could see it happening, but it's definitely something that a GM should put an immediate stop to, even if the GM happens to be trained in mental health (a gaming session is not a 'safe' environment for this kind of thing).Seeing a counselor can be of great benefit to anyone, especially if you have an area of your life which has been problematic and you could benefit from a neutral party helping you to resolve it.  A common misconception is that therapy is for "crazy people" - when in fact it can help with a variety of everyday problems (sometimes - and I know this is hard to believe - it can even be done without involving medications <gasp>).I'll echo the previous advice - if you do decide to seek counseling, shop around.  Practitioners vary greatly in their competence, of course, but also in their approach to their work.  It's important to find someone you feel comfortable with.  Remember, it's your money, and your therapist is, in effect, working for you.A caveat, however.  'Effective' treatment does not always mean 'pleasant'.  Sometimes a therapist's job is to help you confront things about yourself that are getting in your way, which means sometimes you end up hearing things you don't like.Assuming the psychologist is not familiar with RPG's, they'd ask you to explain what you meant by your statements.  Even if it was someone like me (who does play RPGs), I'd probably ask for that explanation anyway, because what you mean by "chaotic good" may be different  from what I think it means (part of being an effective therapist, IMO, is trying to maintain impartiality by minimizing assumptions).As far as what would happen, it depends greatly on what exactly the situation was.  Someone who was describing themselves as chaotic good as a way to explain their personality or outlook on life wouldn't get much of a reaction from me.  Someone who told me that it was okay to kill people on the street because they were neutral evil and were supposed to have a callous disregard for life could end up with a one-way ticket to a hospital.</blockquote>

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