Psychology Commons^™

Dual Consciousness: What Psychology And Counseling Theories Can Teach And Learn Regarding Identity And The Role-Playing Game Experience, Elektra Diakolambrianou, Sarah Lynne Bowman

Journal of Roleplaying Studies and STEAM

Many psychologists, therapists, and educators have emphasized the practice of play, especially with enacted roles, as a site for learning and therapeutic growth. This article weaves together a plethora of theories from psychology, Counseling, and role-playing game studies in an effort to understand the nature of enacted roles, their relationship to identity, and their transformative potential. Challenging the notion that identity is a fixed, stable monolith, the article synthesizes four overall approaches to theorizing the nature of identity drawn from various theories: identity as a social construct, narrative identity, identity as psychodynamic, and identities as parts of a whole. The …