By Lindsay DePietro 

(Above: Mastering Mental Mayhem logo via masteringmentalmayhem.org).

Therapy and video gaming collide on Jack Licata’s Mastering Mental Mayhem website.

Licata has been a long time Dungeon & Dragons fan. His love for the game spans back to his childhood, where he would play with his father and siblings growing up.

During the time of COVID-19, Licata set up an online game for him and his friends to play together. He then decided to post an invite online so anyone could join in on their fun. 

Although Licata is from Buffalo, his game reached people in Albany, Texas and even Canada.

After about a year, he and his game mates went on what Licata called a “short hiatus,” and during this period he ended up getting a job in a behavioral health clinic.

So when he hopped back on the game again and one of the players said, “Thank goodness we’re playing again. This game is like my therapy,” Licata said he had a “lightbulb moment.” 

“I’m working in behavioral health. I enjoy gaming. One of my players talked about how this was a therapeutic tool for him, a good coping skill with the stress of everything else. Why don’t we combine this?” Licata said.

After doing his research and, according to his website, receiving “therapeutically applied role-playing game training from Game to Grow’s certification program,” Licata launched his website Mastering Mental Mayhem in 2023. 

On the site, people can play different games with other people who may have a similar goal in things like improving mental health or playing in a safe and accepting environment. 

“I have 20 games available and it is still growing. There’s actually two games I’m learning right now that I want to be able to put on the website and offer soon,” Licata said.

“Sometimes people think all tabletops [games] are just the same,” Licata said.

He explains that this is not true. Tabletop video games have multiple different genres and styles.

For his website, Licata likes to “break it down between three different genres.”

He offers the genres of fantasy, science fiction and horror on Mastering Mental Mayhem. Within each genre, Licata has games with a range of different difficulty levels.

“Ultimately, if people aren’t enjoying a game it’s because they’re not playing the style of game they enjoy playing,” Licata said.

Therapeutic gaming also provides a safe space for self-expression and creativity.

Therapeutic gaming helps to foster and hone skills such as communication, collaboration, emotional regulation, planning, adaptability and perspective, according to his website. 

As game master, Licata has different game mechanics that allow him to adjust the games based on the different personal triggers that his players may express to him beforehand.

Licata said he has also “been doing a lot of meditations incorporating visualization.”

“When we start playing the game, we do a short meditation and with that people are able to ground themselves in the moment, kind of like do a small destressing coping skill with a five-minute meditation, and then get into character,” Licata said. 

“For example, a walk down a forest appealing to the different sites, sounds and smells. I then adapt it to be a walk in a dungeon,” he added.  

Within the Discord server that Licata has connected to his website, players who have played games together get their own private chats. In these chats, they have the opportunity to build close connections with others. 

Players have been seen helping each other through personal matters and stresses.

“One of the players from Italy was taking an exam in graduate school and was really nervous for it. I have another player from Wales in the UK who has been going through her own exams and was offering the way that she was coming down from that stress,” Licata said. 

Although his website has connected players across multiple different countries, it has been “very slow growing to build this community. I don’t think that we have more than 75 people in the Discord total,” Licata said.

One factor behind this may be people’s hesitancy about playing games in general.

“There’s a lot of stigma against gaming, I guess. One of the big things is that people think it’s just for kids or, you know, it’s not for me. And I ask them, like if you enjoy a football game, what’s stopping you from enjoying a tabletop game. If you play the card game, then what’s stopping you from playing a game of dice,” Licata said.

Despite this obstacle, Licata is still motivated and hoping to expand his community further.

“I know there’s definitely a lot more room to grow,” Licata said. “I do hope to integrate myself more in the community around here, specifically through community resources like Elderwood and such to focus more on the therapeutic level of the game.”

If you feel gaming is like your therapy, are interested in turning your hobby into a therapeutic tool for yourself or are simply looking for a new therapeutic resource, Mastering Metal Mayhem is a few clicks away. 

You can access the website here.