Video Gamers Podcast
Mental Health and Gaming w/guest Dr. Bean of Geek Therapeutics - Gaming Podcast
Fri, 02 May 2025
Gaming host John sits down with Dr. Anthony Bean, clinical psychologist, video game researcher, and founder of Geek Therapeutics, to explore the intersection of mental health and gaming. From the myths around video game addiction to how gaming can actually help us grow emotionally, this episode dives into what it really means to level up in real life. Whether you're curious about therapy through geek culture, want to better understand your own gaming habits, or just love hearing about how your favorite games impact your brain—this is one episode you don't want to miss. Your weekly hit of gaming insights, video game culture, and expert-level conversations—from the Video Gamers Podcast. FOLLOW GEEK THERAPEUTICS: Website: https://geektherapeutics.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/geektherapeutics/ Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, and Gaius Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/ Follow us on X: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@VideoGamersPod?sub_confirmation=1 Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the benefits and harms of gaming?
Hello, fellow gamers, and welcome back to the Video Gamers Podcast. Video games are one of the most immersive forms of entertainment available. For millions of people around the world, they serve as entertainment, a hobby, or an escape.
But with so many of us spending so much time in front of the screen, it can be difficult to understand what underlying benefits or harm we might be exposing ourselves to. Today, we are diving into the intersection between mental health and gaming with a truly epic guest. But first, some introductions are in order.
I am your host, John, and joining me today is a guest that is literally changing the game when it comes to mental health. A licensed psychologist, researcher, and founder of Geek Therapeutics, it's Dr. Anthony Bean. Dr. Bean, welcome to the show. How are you?
I'm doing pretty good, pretty good. Excited to be here.
Yeah, excited to have you. People who know me will know that this particular topic is something that's very personal to me. So I am really excited that you took the time out of your day to dive into this. But before we get going in some of the discussions here, can you tell me a little bit about yourself and about Geek Therapeutics?
Absolutely. So I am a licensed psychologist. I'm actually licensed in about 35 different states. Like a true license, not like a... There's something in our field called PsychPact. I'm not part of that. I actually have like the actual real license across about 35 different states.
35.
I'm 15 away from getting my entire Pokedex done. Just so we're on the same clear. I'm 15 away. Got it. And it's been a lot of fun. It's been very trying in some cases because every state does something a whole little bit different. And their rules and regulations... are very identical to other people in other states. However, they're
interviewing and their, um, application process is wildly different. And some of them are wildly outdated, um, and in a lot of crazy ways. So I I'm, I'm licensed in a lot of different states. I see a lot of people I'm, uh, what you would call kind of a concierge psychologist.
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Chapter 2: How can gaming help with mental health?
describe what emotional what was the word you use emotional emotional regulation emotional regulation thank you yeah yeah so emotional regulation is whether you can kind of calm yourself down when you get overexcited anxious depressed angry something along those is like how can you satisfy what your body is needing right now with being able to bring yourself down to a more calm less emotional state as our emotions go higher our logical sense goes down and vice versa so when we have someone who's dysregulated
in this capacity from an emotional standpoint, whether it's like brother, sister, didn't do well in school, didn't do well in a game or something like that. Our goal is to be like, great, let's talk about it. Let's build that regulation around it and let's get you re-regulated and less emotional. It's logical so we can actually talk about it and then process it in a lot of very powerful ways.
And so when we're seeing things for kids in emotional regulation, what we're seeing is there's a time for kiddos, kiddos, adolescents, where too much gaming can have what we call like a, an overdraft effect on them where they have a hard time re-acclimating back to their normal functionality. However, for every kid, it's different. That's the whole thing.
My daughter, I'll give you examples with my two kids. My daughter can play Mario Kart for like two, three hours, half the time of her life, and she's like, yeah, I'm good, I'm done. Not a problem. My son, when he does it for about an hour and 15, when he does it for a little bit more of an hour and 15, we start to have that hangover dysregulation effect happen.
That's when I work with them and be like, let's process what you did in the game. Let's talk about it. Let's get these things handled. What do you think you're going to do when you can play the game again? When's our next time that we can think forward that we're going to get a chance to do that again?
Those are regulations that we have to do for our own personal emotions, but also for the people around us. It works a lot better when you play the game with your kids. uh, my son loves Kirby, all, uh, friends, all stars, friends and allies, whatever it is right now.
Um, it's one of the Kirby games that's out and he enjoys playing by himself, but he enjoys it much more and is much easier to, to help, uh, regulate any sort of like, say, if I play with him, do you mind if I ask how old your, uh, son and daughter are? Yeah. So my daughter's five and my son is eight, eight.
Okay. So I think, maybe this is a gross overgeneralization, but it seems like people of that age are generally quite eager to get their parents' attention anyways. And if you can couple that with an activity like video gaming... That seems like a double win.
Something that Jamie Madigan talks about in some of his material and he talked about on our show as an advantage to gaming, specifically in social settings, is it provides sort of the social scaffolding required to make connections, which is kind of why online gaming, there's a lot of positive to it. You can create friendships by way of...
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Chapter 3: What is Geek Therapeutics and its mission?
Oh, there they are.
I remember kind of reframing my anxiousness in a way where I go like, okay, John, the only difference between somebody who is a hero and who is not a hero is that heroes do hero stuff. And there's a great line in the Batman, the Chris Nolan Batman franchise where they talk about, like, it's not who you think you are or what you think about yourself deep down inside.
It's the things you do that define you. And I remember reading somewhere on the internet or hearing somewhere that, like, Physiologically, there's no distinction between anxiousness and excitement. They're sort of the same chemical expression or whatever. And I go like, okay, John, so you're going to, from now on, interpret this anxiety as excitement.
And anytime you start to feel this way, rather than succumbing to your fear, you're going to take this as an opportunity to be brave. And when I thought about this through my Captain America lens as somebody who, you know, he's not a real person, but he's real enough to me.
As somebody who I idolize and who I aspire to be, I go, every time I take the opportunity to be brave, I can become more Captain America-like. And the importance of... Feeling brave outweighs the importance of avoiding whatever I am fearful of. And that was a very important reframing for me. From your perspective, is that something that Geek Therapeutics is trying to actively promote?
Or can you tell me a bit more about how you are integrating gaming culture and practices into people's therapies?
Yeah, absolutely. So what you did right there is pretty much what we do in therapy is we go in and hone in on what those things are. So Captain America, like, I could do this all day type scenario. You can. You can do it all day. That's not something to shy away from. It's something that takes courage.
Captain America, throughout the movies, comics, and everything else that we've done, you can see such a wonderful trajectory where he never left his morals behind. in a sense.
And that is the moral, his morals are his superpower. That's like, yes, he happened. He happened to get super soldier serum, which if you know where to get some, sign me up, but, but his morals are his superpower. Absolutely.
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