Growth Games

Today we were taught about growth games which are described by our lecturer as “games” that “nudge a person to awareness” in other words “through the experience of an activity” individuals become aware of “emotions, potential or issues that challenge them at some level.”

Our lecture began with a growth game that explores the issue of personal values. Our class had to pretend that we were on a sinking ship that only had one life raft. The game required us to choose a select few to take the limited spots in the life raft and motivate why we choose them.  The aim of the game was to put the participants in “survival mode” thus encouraging our fundamental values to shine through.

Playing the game was much harder than it sounds because we weren’t really in a panic situation so in reality we were all being cautious not to offend anyone. However, the exercise was successful in forcing us to explore our own individual as well as common societal values. For example, many people were passive and elected to stay on the ship. This could indicate that these individuals value being a good person and possibly even a martyr. In my opinion, this is not surprising for people that have elected to do a caring profession like Occupational Therapy. The game also raised questions like: why does society believe that, in the case of a sinking ship, men should stay back and women and children should automatically be given a place on the raft?

The most important lesson I learnt from this game was that individual values vary so vastly. Now, I know this sounds obvious but I think occasionally we forget this and we either force our values upon other people or we judge people for their values. This is an important lesson to take into treatment - as therapists it is important to accept different individual’s values and not impose our values on others. It is not our job to judge it is our job to ensure people live meaningful lives that are concurrent with their values.

The fact that these observations were made and these particular questions were raised is proof that the exercise was effective in getting the juices flowing and thinking critically about why we chose certain individuals; therefore making growth games an essential and effective tool that every OT should be able to pull out of their bag of tricks.