Personality development through immersion into intermediate areas of digital role-playing games

Abstract

Specific psychodynamic qualities are a precondition for lifelong personality development. Further development of the human psyche is always happening in a kind of virtual space or as D. W. Winnicott calls it: in an intermediate area. In this chapter, challenges of deep immersion into this intermediate area are mentioned, and the parallels and differences between early and later intermediate areas are discussed. The first intermediate areas in the development of an individual are co-constructed in early infancy by ‘psychological parents’ and their child. Later on, situations like psychoanalytic therapy or playing a digital role-playing game facilitate the co-construction of intermediate areas as ‘developmental spaces’. The chapter focuses on a bundle of competencies of a sane psychic structure that mutually interact. Referring to psychoanalytic theories, these four competencies are secondary symbol formation, co-construction of intermediate areas for collaborative playing, back and forth motion of immersion and reflection and strategies to ‘tame’ chaos. The chapter will show some aspects how these abilities can be advanced by the act of playing digital role-playing games.