During elementary school age and into early adolescence, children use games to express aggression and refine social interaction patterns that are adaptable to other areas of their lives. Competitive board games are useful for experiencing the "thrill of victory and the agony of defeat;" testing one's sense of competence and power; and dealing with feelings of anticipation, vengefulness, inadequacy and helplessness. Games increase children's abilities to connect choices with consequences and to calculate the impact of the possible choices on other people. Games also support optimal cognitive development and problem solving skills.
Competitive games challenge the child emotionally as well. When playing a game with a play therapist, a child has to: confront the probable superiority of adult thinking; remain motivated and persevere to the end; follow rules and refrain from cheating when tempted; and win graciously or soothe himself in the event of losing.
In this article, I am focusing on the use of Parker Brothers' Riskİ - and on how the game can facilitate the development of cognitive abilities, strategic thinking, impulse restraint and collaborative, competitive play. Throughout the paper I will be using male pronouns because I've not had a girl choose to play the game.
The Game
Riskİ is a competitive game of world conquest. It is meant for three to six players but a two-person version can be played if you set up a "dummy hand". The playing board is a simplified world map of forty-two countries, territories or regions. In the beginning each participant gets a stipulated number of playing pieces (armies), which will be placed on the territories he receives when the Riskİ cards are dealt. Each card represents a territory and a military division - infantry, artillery, or cavalry - and each card is used again, during the play, to replenish armies lost in the course of the game. Players take turns being attacker and defender, with the aims being to diminish the opponent's forces in territories adjacent to yours, gain control of those territories, expand to whole continents and, ultimately, totally destroy the opposing forces and rule the whole world.
Therapeutic Advantages
It is easy to see how this game has maintained popularity for over thirty years. It is ripe for fantasy fueled by thinly veiled aggression, sadism and grandiosity. It is also not purely a game of chance, in that acquired skill counts. Because it is a long game that can go on for several hours recreationally, it can take four to eight sessions to complete, promoting a feeling of continuation and connection between sessions. To the degree the child is in the process of developing the ability to consider and weigh alternatives, the game enhances this capacity as well as the cognitive aspects of problem-solving. Attendant affective areas of problem-solving seem to be: the ability to deal with frustration; momentary or sustained feelings of deflation and hopelessness; impulsive reactivity; maintaining quiet focus in the face of emotional flooding; and the tendency to resort to spitefulness when thwarted. The game also provides ample opportunity for the therapist to coach the child about his decisions.
bThe Play(from the child's point of view)
The boys, with whom I've played this game, have similar playing habits: They depend on sheer luck and don't plan. They make poor probability assessments. They attack until their armies are depleted and they show no thought for the next turn. They distribute their armies evenly rather than poised to attack or defend. Their zeal is quickly overturned with the first setback and they over-predict failure. Small shifts in the opponent's favor shake their sense of control
While all of these behaviors are normal for children at various stages of development, psychological limitations and problems will make them more pronounced or more difficult to move past.The Play(from the therapist's point of view)
Berlin (2001) speaks to the need for the therapist to adhere to the "difference between playing and play therapy," maintain a playful atmosphere and to control his own competitive drive to win at all costs.
While making my game moves, I vocalize my thoughts to model the mental activity I'm hoping the child will develop. Lowe (1998) identified a questioning strategy in the use of chess that is a useful guide for these vocalizations. Examples of Lowe's questions include:
Case Example: Charles- age 13
Charles was referred to me for therapy when he was 11 ½. He was living with his mother and sister after his mother insisted he leave his father's home because of the increasing frequency and intensity of aggressive outbursts. His father had remarried and had two preschool children who idolized Charles but he and his father had a fragile, hostile relationship. Each of them frustrated the other and family life was punctuated by violent arguments.He and I hit it off immediately. He was delighted that I was interested in letting him introduce me to a game called, Magic the Gathering. We spent the first half dozen sessions with him walking me through game after game.
Over the next eight months his behavior rose and fell. He was given trials of two antidepressants and each had an initial "halo" period but two themes continued despite interventions: 1) he was convinced that none of his peers really liked him and 2) he would respond to frustrating demands with verbal and physical outbursts. He was forced to leave his private school because his behavior and attitude had become intolerably negative.
His symptoms climaxed when he physically assaulted his mother because she wouldn't yield to a whim of his. His parents and I met once more and began discussing residential treatment centers. I also suggested that he have a re-evaluation by his prescribing psychiatrist. He was then placed on an additional mood stabilizer and his violent outbursts began to diminish.
Shortly thereafter Charles pulled down the Riskİ game for the first time. We had played other games and had spent some sessions talking in the past but this was the first time that we launched into what would be several months of devoted application and refinement.
He began with the same characteristics in his game play as were outlined above-attack until you run out of armies and overreact to unfavorable events. At the end of each session we would tally what we had and would write it down. At the next session we would set-up again and continue. While I rarely purposely lose, I held back a fair amount so as not to present him with a series of insurmountable setbacks. I constantly verbalized my reflections on my decisions and the alternatives I considered. I ended up winning the first game after four sessions of play. I then critiqued his game. I pointed out how he had hedged some of his opportunities out of fear of losing. I told him that his hesitation produced exactly what he feared. I talked about his reinforcement placement and how self-defeating it was. He also never formalized an offense that wasn't merely a momentary, reactive defense.
He wanted to play another game so we started fresh the next session. This time I initiated our play by asking him to verbalize his initial strategy, and I offered mine. I questioned him on many of his choices that seemed pivotal. He couldn't seem to stop distributing his replenished armies in illogical places. At one point, I got a lot of armies, placed them in one territory and told him, " Let me show you how important it is to take advantage of the strength you have and put aside your weak points". I marched through two continents and he looked like he had discovered something. He said, "Wow, I got it." In the next session he accumulated a number of armies, swept through my forces and completely took over the board. He walked out and beamed. Telling his mother "I beat him. I won."
The next week he suggested a variation to increase the difficulty. Both of us were to command two separate forces that couldn't work together but also couldn't fight each other. We would rotate turns among all four. Each participating force received its own countries, armies, and cards and had to be played separately. The potential inferences one can draw, regarding the meanings in this setup, are unclear. I made no comment on this.
As the game progressed from session to session it moved much slower and involved much more discussion about the pros and cons of what to do next and the impact that would have on the next turns from the two or three forces to follow. I kept pointing out to him how he habitually would say "Oh I'm going to lose now." when things seemed to work in my favor only to have them reverse in a round or two. After one particularly convoluted session, in which we discussed strategies step-by-step, I delivered what must have sounded like a small lecture outlining the comparative value of various directions in the course of the game. He left, remarking in a discouraged tone as he walked out the door, " You know so much more than me." I immediately replied with something both aggressively provocative and direct "Maybe I do know a little more. But what good is a grown-up who can't offer you something you don't already know?"
As the game progressed it became clear that it was not in my best interest to totally dispense with one of his forces. If I did then he'd have two turns per round of play with the one remaining force while I'd still have only one for each of my two forces. I shared this insight, by saying, "If I wipe out one of your armies it would be momentarily satisfying but it would work against me in the long-run". He agreed. At that point our interaction changed and we became more like mutual consultants on how to play the most advantageous moves without completely destroying the other until one was in a position to absolutely take over the whole board within one round. Our strategizing evolved from being warriors to statesmen. After we ended the game he went on to request that we return to Magic the Gathering, which is the game we started out with the previous year and in which he could teach me the ropes. He proceeded over the next few weeks to guide me in the strategy of the game and was a very gracious loser and winner.
Subsequent to this work, I had a brief word with his father-who was extremely skeptical of therapy. He informed me that Charles had significantly changed in his interactions with him and his new family. He was much more thoughtful in his responses and less reactive. He would consider comments made to him rather than become irritably defensive. He was able to be more reasonable in negotiations than before. He also began to develop more lasting friendships at school. I believe the use of the game in play therapy facilitated these changes.
References
Berlin, Irving, The Use of Competitive Games in Play Therapy, in Game Play, C. Schaeffer and S. Reid, Eds., John Wiley & Sons: New York, 2001, p 112
Lowe, Leslie Hartley, Chess Playing as a Metaphor for Life Choices, in 101 Favorite Play Therapy Techniques, H. Kaduson and C. Schaeffer, Eds. , Jason Aronson: New Jersey, 1998, p.179