Like Magic: The Use of Fantasy and Geek Culture in Therapy

I beamed at the librarian as she handed me a small stack of books from The Worst Witch series. The books featured Mildred Hubble, an awkward, somewhat impulsive young witch at a magic school. I was her age and related so much to her. Reading about her adventures in a world of flying brooms, pet bats, and fantasy gave me more than entertainment. It opened my eyes to possibility.

Years later, I had a similar experience as I read of the epic Lord of the Rings. I could feel the hobbit's longing for the comforts of home much as I fought my own anxiety. Sméagol's inner battles were vivid, painful to watch, and, in a small way, universally relatable as a fellow person. I could feel the beauty and peace of Rivendell and wished to have the healing abilities of elvish medicine. The stories, in a way, gave me a space to process my own.

Fantasy as a Wellness Tool

As a therapist, I have often sought out creative tools in therapy. Integrating client interests into therapy is a mainstay, particularly for adolescents. I've found the mysterious world of fantasy to be especially rich in therapeutic metaphor. I'm not the only one. From integrating tabletop role-playing games in building social connections (Abbott and colleagues, 2022) to creating a metaphor-rich story with families to represent overcoming hurdles (Mota and Blumer, 2013), tools drawn from the fantasy genre are hardly new to therapy.

These strategies offer a space where change is easily accessed allowing individuals and families to envision change that may be difficult to imagine at a start. The use of metaphors and altered narratives can give a person a sense of empowerment that is almost magical. It ignites a kind of creative thinking often necessary for moving through complex difficulties. The sparkle in someone's eyes when they can connect to something like a story or game can turn into a new mind state.

Fantasy Within Traditional Therapy Modalities

Fantasy can be integrated into traditional therapy modalities. For example, imagery is used in a variety of modalities including acceptance commitment therapy. A client who loves fantasy might practice a defusion exercise of envisioning themselves riding atop a dragon with each thought or worry that crosses their mind being breathed back into the fire or the dragon. While brief, this experience could grant a person a way to practice unhooking from thoughts that once caught them up.

Themes of fantasy can also be integrated into experientials used within traditional therapies. An illustration of this, conversations about self-care are common in the therapy room and often edge from a cognitive behavioral perspective. The therapist may encourage the client to think about the multi-dimensional aspects of self-care. A quick and fun experiential for this can involve different colors of sand, bubbles, and a 'potion' component. The client may then assign meaning to each ingredient, perhaps purple sand might represent 'rest' while red would represent time with friends. The created 'potion' can serve as a visual exploration of what one needs for self-care as well as a real-life reminder of it.

Geek Therapy

An emerging model of therapy, geek therapy, actively encourages the use of fantasy and other aspects of 'geek' culture in therapy (Yen and colleagues, 2016.). Individual geek therapists can work from almost any modality be it a narrative focus or a cognitive behavioral one. Still, all show respect for imagination as a healing tool. It is a growing community that is advantaging this powerful tool. If you are interested in integrating fantasy into your therapy, reaching out to a geek therapist could be an excellent place to start.