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Meet your love, get rid of insecurities, become richer? Easy! Throw the dice, move the chip around the playing field and draw cards. What are transformational games and how can they help us achieve our life goals?
It is said that about thirty years ago a group of young Englishmen, traveling through Tibet in search of enlightenment, met Buddhist monks. They sat on the sand around the painted symbols. Looking closely, the British realized that the drawing on the sand serves as a playing field. Young people asked permission to observe and studied the mysterious process for a long time. And when they returned to their homeland, they patented the game “Transformation”, which laid the foundation for the passion for transformational games – and at the same time gave them a name.
Today, such games are gaining popularity. And in Russia and some former Soviet republics – even more than in the West. Perhaps because solving problems with the help of a psychotherapist is not yet too familiar for us, suggests psychologist Alla Chugueva, author of the transformational game Parade of the Planets: “Some people still perceive a trip to a psychologist almost as a recognition of their own abnormality. And it’s just a game.” Which, nevertheless, helps at least one step closer to life goals.
Benefit and entertainment
Transformational games can be roughly divided into three categories: esoteric games, business games, and psychological games. An example of an esoteric game is “Lila Chakra”. It is based on the ancient Chinese Book of Changes: each of the 64 cells of the playing field corresponds to one of the I-Ching hexagrams. Getting to her, the player interprets her message in relation to his situation and eventually creates a certain model of his spiritual path. This game can have different goals: from “get a job” to “find out why I came into this world.”
There are no losers in transformation games. Everyone will get an answer to their question
The second category is business games: they either teach specific business skills (decision making, team building), or help change the attitude towards money and find new strategies for making money. An example is Evgeny Geller’s game MatriX, a kind of brainstorming simulator.
The third direction is psychological games. This is “Support”: the leader draws a card from the deck with a description of a difficult situation (for example, “I can’t finish a single thing”), and the rest give him support. In the course of the game, it turns out what type of support (by action, emotional, intellectual) everyone is ready to accept and give to others and what skills he lacks.
But what about the well-known “Mafia” (where the “sheriff” must neutralize the “mafia” who are hiding among the peaceful “residents of the city”) and “Imaginarium” (where players offer associations to fantasy images on cards)? After all, they also develop observation, logic, empathy… These games are not transformational, but entertaining. They have a different goal: pleasure, communication and, finally, winning.
“Any game develops some skills, at least communicative ones,” explains Alla Chugueva. – And the main feature of the transformational game is that it is always carried out taking into account a specific request. Each participant has his own, although they play the same game. And there will be no winners and losers. Everyone will get an answer to their question.”
Clarify Request
“A professional presenter can use any tool to help people learn something about themselves, even a simple card game,” says psychologist Olga Nikitina, leader of transformational games. But in order to get closer to the realization of our dreams and remove obstacles on the way to it, we have to not only know ourselves better, but change. It is for the sake of change that you need to play transformation games.
How this happens can be seen in the example of the game “Parade of Planets”. There are nine planets, each symbolizing an important area of life: health, career, a special gift … Participants choose one of them to “live” in accordance with their theme. Already at this stage they clarify their requests. After all, I want to get married! for someone “about love”, and for someone “about wealth”.
Then they go on a journey to the galaxy of Happiness. As it should be in a stellar odyssey, danger awaits them: meteor showers or attacks by space pirates. All events in the game are a metaphor for situations in the lives of the players. The facilitator helps decipher these metaphors so that the players can use the knowledge they have gained.
The game gives you the opportunity to change yourself. And then the person that we will become will begin to change circumstances.
“When we dream about something, we strive for changes in one area, but everything is interconnected, and the game shows how other aspects of our life will change if we achieve what we want,” explains Alla Chugueva.
Ordinarily, we would rather change our circumstances than ourselves. But the greater the distance between the reality around us and what we want, the more changes will occur in us on the way to the goal. Otherwise, the goal will constantly and inexplicably elude us. The game gives us this valuable opportunity to change ourselves first. And then the person that we will become, a person with new properties and skills, will begin to change circumstances.
Therapy or not?
“Many acquaintances were surprised: how did you, a systemic family therapist, take up some games? – says Alla Chugueva. “But I think they have a lot of potential. Watching the results of the players, I see that understanding their own way of thinking and acting often comes to them faster than in therapy, because it is easy to open up in the game, there is less resistance to change, excitement helps. The player is able to quickly recognize his characteristics and often even see ways to change in one game.
Alla Chugueva compares the outcome of transformational games with the effect of short-term problem-solving therapy (SPRT).
Olga Nikitina agrees with this: “The similarity of the transformational game with therapy is that in both cases the participant’s awareness increases: he can see the events of his own life as if from the outside and notice patterns in them, for example, repetitive plots and feelings, and then influence them.”
But other types of psychotherapy, such as psychoanalysis, which work with “life in general”, analyze personal history, look far into the past. Here the differences are great: the game is focused on the “separately taken” issue and is aimed at the future, at finding the desired.
The meaning of accidents
Critics of transformational games often accuse them of being frivolous and unscientific. We blindly throw a die, randomly take out cards with tasks … What are the psychological patterns here? But hosts often hear from surprised players: “This is exactly like in my life!” What’s the matter?
“Perhaps the explanation is in how consciousness is arranged,” suggests Olga Nikitina, “we have the ability to respond to almost any story. And the game is designed to actualize our experience.”
What matters is not what card we drew, but how we react to it, what we feel, what we are doing
Alla Chugueva points out that the element of chance does not play a big role in the final result of the game.
“The client, who is also a player, always talks about himself. And in this sense, it is important not what card he pulled out, but how he reacts to it, what he feels, what he does. Both in the game and in life, he expresses himself – with all the complexes, fears and aspirations. But in the game, he sees them more clearly and therefore receives clearer answers to the questions he asked at the beginning: is the goal achievable? What qualities will help you get there? Or maybe you should change your priorities?
Three tips for players
What is useful to consider, who decided to understand themselves and get closer to their dreams with the help of the game?
Firstly, many games promise a quick result, but it may differ from the original desire of the player. If, for example, after receiving a salary of 40 thousand rubles for many years, we come to the game with the dream of getting into the top ten of the Forbes list, it is unlikely that we will become billionaires immediately after the game. But it is quite possible that we will understand the unrealisticness of our requests and find a way to achieve more modest financial goals.
Secondly, the games are very diverse. To some, battles with space pirates may seem ridiculous. And in games aimed at a female audience, lit candles, crystal balls and other magical surroundings are often used. If all this is not to your liking, then it is better to look for another game. Otherwise, your skepticism will interfere with you, the host, and the rest of the players.
Thirdly, it is extremely important who is leading the game. An inept facilitator can trigger traumatic memories in players or damage them with inappropriate remarks. Professionals do not make such mistakes. True, Evgeny Geller, who, in addition to MatriX, created one of the most famous psychological games “Genesis”, has no psychological education. But this is more the exception than the rule.