Pseudo-Counselling Interviews and “Area-of-Effect” Healing: A Thematic Analysis of Healthy Gamer Interviews as a Form of Mental Health Intervention (Interview Mechanisms)

TY - JOUR

T1 - Pseudo-Counselling Interviews and “Area-of-Effect” Healing

T2 - A Thematic Analysis of Healthy Gamer Interviews as a Form of Mental Health Intervention (Interview Mechanisms)

AU - Lee, G

PY - 2025/8/18

Y1 - 2025/8/18

N2 - Despite increasing awareness of the negative impacts that poor mental health can have on individuals and society, demand for psychotherapeutic services vastly outstrips provision. Digital-interventions may be one way to help meet demand through offering increased accessibility, and lower-cost solutions. For example, HealthyGamerGG is an online organisation produces pseudo-counselling interviews i.e., long-format discussions between a trained-psychiatrist and interviewee using therapeutic methods on popular video-streaming platforms (Twitch, YouTube). Using data collected from HealthyGamerGG’s platforms on Reddit and YouTube, this study takes a critical-realist, inductive thematic-analysis approach to investigate viewers’ perceptions of potential mechanisms for change in pseudo-counselling interviews. This study found that viewers, through resonance with the content, experienced personal transformation and psychotherapeutic effects, acting as a supplement, alternative or catalyst for therapy. This study is the first to investigate this format of intervention by HealthyGamerGG and suggests a fuller evaluation is warranted, given the apparent therapeutic benefit and large population utilising these videos. The effectiveness of internet-mediated research compared to interviews/focus-groups for producing high-quality responses is also examined.

AB - Despite increasing awareness of the negative impacts that poor mental health can have on individuals and society, demand for psychotherapeutic services vastly outstrips provision. Digital-interventions may be one way to help meet demand through offering increased accessibility, and lower-cost solutions. For example, HealthyGamerGG is an online organisation produces pseudo-counselling interviews i.e., long-format discussions between a trained-psychiatrist and interviewee using therapeutic methods on popular video-streaming platforms (Twitch, YouTube). Using data collected from HealthyGamerGG’s platforms on Reddit and YouTube, this study takes a critical-realist, inductive thematic-analysis approach to investigate viewers’ perceptions of potential mechanisms for change in pseudo-counselling interviews. This study found that viewers, through resonance with the content, experienced personal transformation and psychotherapeutic effects, acting as a supplement, alternative or catalyst for therapy. This study is the first to investigate this format of intervention by HealthyGamerGG and suggests a fuller evaluation is warranted, given the apparent therapeutic benefit and large population utilising these videos. The effectiveness of internet-mediated research compared to interviews/focus-groups for producing high-quality responses is also examined.

KW - Digital Intervention

KW - Mental Health

KW - Psychotherapy

UR - https://sites.dundee.ac.uk/social-science-student-research-journal/archives/journal-articles/lee-g/

U2 - 10.20933/30000109

DO - 10.20933/30000109

M3 - Article

SN - 2753-6262

VL - 3

JO - Journal of Social Science Student Research

JF - Journal of Social Science Student Research

IS - 1

ER -