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Starship Therapise: Using Therapeutic Fanfiction to Rewrite Your Life
Harnessing the power of fandom--from Game of Thrones to The Adventures of Zelda--to conquer anxiety, heal from depression, and reclaim balance in mental and emotional health.
Modern mythologies are everywhere--from the Avengers of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to the dragons of Game of Thrones. Where once geek culture was niche and hidden, fandom characters and stories have blasted their way into our cineplexes, bookstores, and streaming systems. They help us make sense of our daily lives--and they can also help us heal. Mental health therapists and Starship Therapise podcast hosts Larisa Garski and Justine Mastin offer a self-help guide to the mental health galaxy for those who have been left out in more traditional therapy spaces: geeks, nerds, gamers, cosplayers, introverts, and all of their friends.
Starship Therapise explores the ways in which narratives and play inform the shape of our lives, inviting readers to embrace radical self-care with lessons from Ghost in the Shell, explore anxiety with Miyazaki, and understand narrative therapy with Arya Stark. Spanning fandom from Star Wars to Harry Potter, Zelda to Adventure Time, and everywhere in between, Starship Therapise is an invitation to explore mental health and emotional wellness without conforming to mainstream social constructions.
Insights from comics like Uncanny X-Men, Black Magic, Black Panther, and Batman offer avenues to growth and self-discovery alongside explorations of the triumphs and trials heroes, heroines, and beloved characters from Star Wars, Akira, Wuthering Heights, The Lord of the Rings, The Hunger Games, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Harry Potter, Steven Universe, and Star Trek. Each chapter closes with a hands-on mindfulness, meditation, or yoga exercise to inspire reflection, growth, and the mind-body-fandom connection.
Modern mythologies are everywhere--from the Avengers of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to the dragons of Game of Thrones. Where once geek culture was niche and hidden, fandom characters and stories have blasted their way into our cineplexes, bookstores, and streaming systems. They help us make sense of our daily lives--and they can also help us heal. Mental health therapists and Starship Therapise podcast hosts Larisa Garski and Justine Mastin offer a self-help guide to the mental health galaxy for those who have been left out in more traditional therapy spaces: geeks, nerds, gamers, cosplayers, introverts, and all of their friends.
Starship Therapise explores the ways in which narratives and play inform the shape of our lives, inviting readers to embrace radical self-care with lessons from Ghost in the Shell, explore anxiety with Miyazaki, and understand narrative therapy with Arya Stark. Spanning fandom from Star Wars to Harry Potter, Zelda to Adventure Time, and everywhere in between, Starship Therapise is an invitation to explore mental health and emotional wellness without conforming to mainstream social constructions.
Insights from comics like Uncanny X-Men, Black Magic, Black Panther, and Batman offer avenues to growth and self-discovery alongside explorations of the triumphs and trials heroes, heroines, and beloved characters from Star Wars, Akira, Wuthering Heights, The Lord of the Rings, The Hunger Games, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Harry Potter, Steven Universe, and Star Trek. Each chapter closes with a hands-on mindfulness, meditation, or yoga exercise to inspire reflection, growth, and the mind-body-fandom connection.
256 pages, Paperback
First published May 4, 2021
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1459 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
April 23, 2021
The idea of "therapeutic fan fiction" is a good one. Beginning with observations from Campbell and Jung that there are deep psychological lessons embedded within the fictional narratives to which we find ourselves attached and extending to research that has shown the act of writing alternative visions of one's life can have profound psychological benefits, it seems to follow naturally that those drawn more to pop culture narratives than to classic literature (on which much of Campbell's and Jung's work was based) might benefit from translating their own psychological struggles into psychologically-motivated "fan fiction" of some sort. As such, I was intrigued to read a book that seemed to promise a guide to just that sort of exercise. Unfortunately, the book does not live up to the merit of the ideas at its core.
To begin with, contrary to my expectations, this isn't really a guide to writing one's own "therapeutic fan fiction," but rather merely a collection of psychological lessons, spanning a variety of topics, told through comparisons with fictional characters who struggled with similar psychological maladies or traits. Indeed, most of the real "meat" of this book doesn't even have anything to do with fan fiction at all; it's just the authors' psychological interpretations of a variety of fictional characters. Fan fiction does enter into the story primarily through "fan fiction case studies" at the close of each chapter wherein the authors write themselves into (bad) fan fiction of a variety of fictional worlds.
In and of itself, that could be useful, and the book is not entirely without merit on those grounds. However, there's simply nothing new here. Everyone who's ever read a book, played a game, or watched a show has compared his or her own psychological struggles to those of the characters. That's WHY we become attached to certain characters in the first place. Yes, the book formalizes the concept a bit (though only a bit) and gives us plenty of examples we might not come up with on our own, but the reader is left with the feeling that he or she hasn't learned anything that isn't better explained in other books (in terms of psychological principles) or that he or she couldn't have come up with independently (in terms of connections to pop culture characters).
To the book's credit, it does contain some useful psychological insights that, if by some chance the reader hasn't already read them, might be useful. The odds of discovering anything new are relatively slim, though. Certainly there's nothing here for the psychological professional to add to his or her practice, but even the occasional reader of mass-marketed "self-help" books will find at least the vast majority of the material quite familiar. Worse, sound advice throughout much of the book is also peppered with quite unsound advice.
Indeed, the book's entire second chapter is completely wrong. And not just wrong, but catastrophically wrong, and in some cases wrong to the extent that it's my opinion (though my opinion doesn't necessarily align with professional standards in this case) that it should threaten professional licensure, to wit: the book goes as far as to argue that one's weight is not in any way associated with health. This is not an exaggeration. The authors could easily have argued that weight is not determinative of health and I would completely agree. They could have argued that overweight people suffer negative social stigmatization and I wouldn't take issue. No, they instead argued that weight "is not a predictor nor an indicator of a person's physical health," that it "does not tell us anything about our health," and that any argument to the contrary is merely a "social construction."
Though this is but one extreme example (which, as I already admitted, does contrast with sound psychological advice elsewhere in the book), it is indicative of the authors' motivations: when their personal politics conflicts with sound science, it is science that must bend to their own political views. Indeed, the book is tainted with political rhetoric (and specifically identity politics) throughout. They take as a "foundational concept" the notion that much of reality consists merely of social constructions. True to an extent, though by no means true to the extent the authors suggest, and unfortunately that view colors the entire text.
It is not my view that a psychological practitioner necessarily needs to check his or her political views at the door before writing a book about psychology. It is my view, however, that politics must only enter into the discussion when absolutely relevant to the particular psychological issue at hand. This book, by contrast, is explicitly political and explicitly anti-capitalist (the authors should therefore be thrilled that I received my copy free for the purposes of writing this review and therefore did not contribute to capitalism by giving them any of my money) throughout its entire text. In one section, the authors criticize (whether rightly or wrongly I will leave to the reader's own decision) the commodification of health (and particularly mental health), apparently missing the irony that a book about therapeutic fan fiction IS an example of the commodification of mental health.
But the problem is not limited to such specific examples. Hardly a page goes by when the reader isn't reminded of the authors' views about identity politics, such as when they introduce psychological thinkers first as "white dudes" and only secondarily as the pioneers of a particular psychological therapy. Why? In the authors' own words: "because colonialism." Comparable examples taint the entire book, culminating in a penultimate chapter that actually goes as far as to suggest certain types of political activism.
Let's put politics aside, though, and talk about the psychology. If one sifts through the never-ending political ramblings, does one find worthwhile psychological insights? Indeed, one does, though the readings of the psychological literature are never much more than superficial. An illustrative example will make the point. In one section, the authors compare Hogwarts Houses (from Harry Potter) to personality types and briefly discuss communication with people who have different communicative preference. They allude to the concept of "love languages," which is quite useful in this discussion, but omit the deep literature on personality psychology. I don't expect a book intended for a general audience to be as detailed as the academic literature, but I certainly would have appreciated at least a bit more allusion to that literature, so the interested reader could follow-up. A possible objection might be that a single book has limited space to discuss such things, but a large number of pages are devoted to Yoga tutorials whose psychological utility is unclear at best.
In terms of writing quality and tone, I find myself of mixed minds. I certainly appreciate the friendly and casual tone throughout. The book's voice feels a lot like that of another fan one might encounter at a pop culture convention at some point. However, when applied to matters of serious scientific importance or depth, that tone quickly begins to read as infantilizing and condescending. Footnotes explaining the authors' "headcanons" (opinions about characters contrary to what is written in the source material) consistently distract from matters of considerable psychological complexity.
In sum, I think the idea of therapeutic fan fiction might have some merit. The authors, as licensed therapists but not credentialed psychological researchers, have done little to demonstrate this empirically, but my educated opinion is that there is very good reason to think it could be a productive subset of psychotherapy. However, this book is a poor introduction to the idea, and the reader would be better served by just going back the source and reading such thinkers as Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung (or even the narrative therapy work of White and Epston, though these writings are just as contaminated by nonsensical political views as this book is).
Note: This is based on an ARC I received free for purposes of review. My opinions remain my own.
To begin with, contrary to my expectations, this isn't really a guide to writing one's own "therapeutic fan fiction," but rather merely a collection of psychological lessons, spanning a variety of topics, told through comparisons with fictional characters who struggled with similar psychological maladies or traits. Indeed, most of the real "meat" of this book doesn't even have anything to do with fan fiction at all; it's just the authors' psychological interpretations of a variety of fictional characters. Fan fiction does enter into the story primarily through "fan fiction case studies" at the close of each chapter wherein the authors write themselves into (bad) fan fiction of a variety of fictional worlds.
In and of itself, that could be useful, and the book is not entirely without merit on those grounds. However, there's simply nothing new here. Everyone who's ever read a book, played a game, or watched a show has compared his or her own psychological struggles to those of the characters. That's WHY we become attached to certain characters in the first place. Yes, the book formalizes the concept a bit (though only a bit) and gives us plenty of examples we might not come up with on our own, but the reader is left with the feeling that he or she hasn't learned anything that isn't better explained in other books (in terms of psychological principles) or that he or she couldn't have come up with independently (in terms of connections to pop culture characters).
To the book's credit, it does contain some useful psychological insights that, if by some chance the reader hasn't already read them, might be useful. The odds of discovering anything new are relatively slim, though. Certainly there's nothing here for the psychological professional to add to his or her practice, but even the occasional reader of mass-marketed "self-help" books will find at least the vast majority of the material quite familiar. Worse, sound advice throughout much of the book is also peppered with quite unsound advice.
Indeed, the book's entire second chapter is completely wrong. And not just wrong, but catastrophically wrong, and in some cases wrong to the extent that it's my opinion (though my opinion doesn't necessarily align with professional standards in this case) that it should threaten professional licensure, to wit: the book goes as far as to argue that one's weight is not in any way associated with health. This is not an exaggeration. The authors could easily have argued that weight is not determinative of health and I would completely agree. They could have argued that overweight people suffer negative social stigmatization and I wouldn't take issue. No, they instead argued that weight "is not a predictor nor an indicator of a person's physical health," that it "does not tell us anything about our health," and that any argument to the contrary is merely a "social construction."
Though this is but one extreme example (which, as I already admitted, does contrast with sound psychological advice elsewhere in the book), it is indicative of the authors' motivations: when their personal politics conflicts with sound science, it is science that must bend to their own political views. Indeed, the book is tainted with political rhetoric (and specifically identity politics) throughout. They take as a "foundational concept" the notion that much of reality consists merely of social constructions. True to an extent, though by no means true to the extent the authors suggest, and unfortunately that view colors the entire text.
It is not my view that a psychological practitioner necessarily needs to check his or her political views at the door before writing a book about psychology. It is my view, however, that politics must only enter into the discussion when absolutely relevant to the particular psychological issue at hand. This book, by contrast, is explicitly political and explicitly anti-capitalist (the authors should therefore be thrilled that I received my copy free for the purposes of writing this review and therefore did not contribute to capitalism by giving them any of my money) throughout its entire text. In one section, the authors criticize (whether rightly or wrongly I will leave to the reader's own decision) the commodification of health (and particularly mental health), apparently missing the irony that a book about therapeutic fan fiction IS an example of the commodification of mental health.
But the problem is not limited to such specific examples. Hardly a page goes by when the reader isn't reminded of the authors' views about identity politics, such as when they introduce psychological thinkers first as "white dudes" and only secondarily as the pioneers of a particular psychological therapy. Why? In the authors' own words: "because colonialism." Comparable examples taint the entire book, culminating in a penultimate chapter that actually goes as far as to suggest certain types of political activism.
Let's put politics aside, though, and talk about the psychology. If one sifts through the never-ending political ramblings, does one find worthwhile psychological insights? Indeed, one does, though the readings of the psychological literature are never much more than superficial. An illustrative example will make the point. In one section, the authors compare Hogwarts Houses (from Harry Potter) to personality types and briefly discuss communication with people who have different communicative preference. They allude to the concept of "love languages," which is quite useful in this discussion, but omit the deep literature on personality psychology. I don't expect a book intended for a general audience to be as detailed as the academic literature, but I certainly would have appreciated at least a bit more allusion to that literature, so the interested reader could follow-up. A possible objection might be that a single book has limited space to discuss such things, but a large number of pages are devoted to Yoga tutorials whose psychological utility is unclear at best.
In terms of writing quality and tone, I find myself of mixed minds. I certainly appreciate the friendly and casual tone throughout. The book's voice feels a lot like that of another fan one might encounter at a pop culture convention at some point. However, when applied to matters of serious scientific importance or depth, that tone quickly begins to read as infantilizing and condescending. Footnotes explaining the authors' "headcanons" (opinions about characters contrary to what is written in the source material) consistently distract from matters of considerable psychological complexity.
In sum, I think the idea of therapeutic fan fiction might have some merit. The authors, as licensed therapists but not credentialed psychological researchers, have done little to demonstrate this empirically, but my educated opinion is that there is very good reason to think it could be a productive subset of psychotherapy. However, this book is a poor introduction to the idea, and the reader would be better served by just going back the source and reading such thinkers as Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung (or even the narrative therapy work of White and Epston, though these writings are just as contaminated by nonsensical political views as this book is).
Note: This is based on an ARC I received free for purposes of review. My opinions remain my own.
January 16, 2023
Rinat Gabay
May 16, 2023
As others have stated, there is a lot of political bias that exudes heavily in this book. My issue is not with the stances they take, but with the appropriateness of this. The biggest issue with this, is it felt completely off topic and irrelevant despite the authors’ insistence that it was. I feel more time was spent on these issues than therapeutic techniques. I finished the book still wondering exactly what therapeutic fan fiction looks like. To call it “fan fiction” is very much a stretch when it appears it is more resourcing used in other therapeutic interventions such as EMDR and DBT rather than any sort of expressive writing or new technique. The only writing encouraged is reflection rather than story.
Back to the issue with bringing the bias of the authors in. The first being that they are mental health therapists, and yes, a mental health clinician should be advocates for social justice. However, a mental health clinician should not bring in their own opinions into work with clients in order to be an impartial third party and a professional of cultural humility. I get this is a book and not direct client work, but the idea the book encourages this idea of the “Westworld Construct” so early on and this idea of “getting rid of what doesn’t serve you,” can come across as judgmental and insensitive to a person’s culture. To do this so quickly can be damaging to rapport, and it is easier said than done. Another issue with the political bias is it can place emphasis on forcing values upon someone when they need to be focusing on their own healing. A whole chapter on climate change? Why? This one still baffles me other than to tell the reader it is important to take care of the planet. Okay, but this is not the time or the place to be discussing this, particularly when someone else is working on their own development.
I don’t want to be completely dismissive of this idea of rewriting your story. I do feel the authors are right to look at what serves you and what doesn’t, but there is a way to approach this with cultural humility to avoid shame (which the authors spent time discussing as not appropriate or motivating to change).
The other issue I had with the book is the writing itself. Firstly, just a personal preference, but the fact that there are two authors but they are never referred to individually and always referred to as “we” bothered me. Even in the case studies, the idea of “we stated” or “we said” like they spoke in unison just felt so odd. It gave enmeshment vibes. Speaking of the case studies, they felt like fan fiction themselves rather than learning activities. I get that they are unrealistic in the fact that fictional characters are coming in for therapy, but more than that; it felt unrealistic in how the sessions would look. Also, the authors use so many references, which isn’t bad. However, if you are not familiar with the reference, they do a terrible job of explaining it. I also question how much the references really fit the point they are trying to make.
One more issue I had was the complete bias in favor of video games. I love video games as much as the next person, but to say there is nothing bad about video games despite their being scientific evidence there can be negative impacts, particularly on developing minds, really bothered me.
Overall, I was disappointed, but not enough to quit reading it.
Back to the issue with bringing the bias of the authors in. The first being that they are mental health therapists, and yes, a mental health clinician should be advocates for social justice. However, a mental health clinician should not bring in their own opinions into work with clients in order to be an impartial third party and a professional of cultural humility. I get this is a book and not direct client work, but the idea the book encourages this idea of the “Westworld Construct” so early on and this idea of “getting rid of what doesn’t serve you,” can come across as judgmental and insensitive to a person’s culture. To do this so quickly can be damaging to rapport, and it is easier said than done. Another issue with the political bias is it can place emphasis on forcing values upon someone when they need to be focusing on their own healing. A whole chapter on climate change? Why? This one still baffles me other than to tell the reader it is important to take care of the planet. Okay, but this is not the time or the place to be discussing this, particularly when someone else is working on their own development.
I don’t want to be completely dismissive of this idea of rewriting your story. I do feel the authors are right to look at what serves you and what doesn’t, but there is a way to approach this with cultural humility to avoid shame (which the authors spent time discussing as not appropriate or motivating to change).
The other issue I had with the book is the writing itself. Firstly, just a personal preference, but the fact that there are two authors but they are never referred to individually and always referred to as “we” bothered me. Even in the case studies, the idea of “we stated” or “we said” like they spoke in unison just felt so odd. It gave enmeshment vibes. Speaking of the case studies, they felt like fan fiction themselves rather than learning activities. I get that they are unrealistic in the fact that fictional characters are coming in for therapy, but more than that; it felt unrealistic in how the sessions would look. Also, the authors use so many references, which isn’t bad. However, if you are not familiar with the reference, they do a terrible job of explaining it. I also question how much the references really fit the point they are trying to make.
One more issue I had was the complete bias in favor of video games. I love video games as much as the next person, but to say there is nothing bad about video games despite their being scientific evidence there can be negative impacts, particularly on developing minds, really bothered me.
Overall, I was disappointed, but not enough to quit reading it.
May 4, 2021
can't say enough wonderful things about this book! Approachable and human. I came for the Zelda chapters, but stayed for the universal themes throughout.
Human beings understand ourselves and our world through stories. Reading this book helped affirm that, connecting meaningful moments from fiction with the lived tapestry of life
Human beings understand ourselves and our world through stories. Reading this book helped affirm that, connecting meaningful moments from fiction with the lived tapestry of life
July 29, 2021
This is kind of a 3.5 star read for me. There are elements I appreciate (the political, the specific examples) and some that I find less effective (the fan fiction sessions heap so much praise on the authors it feels a little disingenuous). If you're curious, I would encourage you to give it a try and to ignore the men giving spiteful one star reviews.
April 10, 2024
Tldr: I felt like this book would be an instant favorite for me, but the way it was written and some inaccuracies (for example, misinformation about a particular mental health diagnosis) took away from the experience.
As someone who has long been aware of the ways in which I've used fandom as a (usually) healthy way to process my emotions, explore what it might look like if I made changes in my own life through the eyes of a character in a similar enough position, and so on, I expected to love this book. Unfortunately, it just didn't land for me.
I could see this book being helpful for some people who are very into their fandoms and are maybe on the fence about trying therapy, or have tried it and had less than ideal experiences, or are trying to cope until they can find or afford the right therapist. There are definitely some decent takeaways in the book's process, even if I have some issues with aspects of the content.
I have mixed feelings about the writing style. On the one hand, it was written in approachable language, without a lot of therapy jargon, which I appreciate. And I appreciated the way that the chapters were divided into small subsections, which can make a text more accessible for those of us who have a hard time sustaining attention. I also appreciate that they balance the individual with the systemic, such as addressing the fact that the individual and even family narrative isn't the whole picture -- narrative won't stop systemic oppression, but rather can be used to cope with it while seeking ways to create change.
On the other hand, instead of therapy jargon, it's absolutely filled with fandom jargon from specific shows and games. The authors usually use a footnote to give a general gist of what they're talking about, and that's helpful, but it's a lot to try to understand if you're also unfamiliar with the concepts the book is describing. The other issue here is that there are a LOT of footnotes, most of which are actually just the authors interjecting their opinion on a fandom topic or making a joke. As someone who, again, has a hard time sustaining attention, it was really frustrating when I'd be in the flow of reading, see a footnote, look to see if it was important... and find out that my flow was disrupted to say something to the effect of "this is our favorite character, because he's clearly the best!" Since this is a book about fandom, I get the intention here to make it feel relatable, but for me personally it was too much and made the book hard to read.
The "mini fanfic" therapy sessions were also really... off-putting for me. Maybe I would have benefited more from a different way of giving examples. I know that their intention was to be brief, so it isn't supposed to be an especially realistic depiction of therapy, but every single session goes like this: "The character(s) sit down, often with one or more being reluctant about being in therapy. Despite that, within 5 minutes of knowing these therapists, they're showing far more emotional awareness and vulnerability than they've ever shown in the canon. The therapists give them basically a summary of the chapter we just read. The characters have an emotional reaction to this apparent revelation, often with uncharacteristic crying, agree that the therapists have a point, and decide to keep coming to therapy to work on it some more." I can understand why writing themselves as basically superhero therapists to all their favorite characters would be helpful for the authors, but as a reader, it broke my suspension of disbelief too much to enjoy it as a story. I appreciate having chapter summaries, so I read them for that, but I was awkwardly aware that I was literally writing somebody else's self-insert wish-fulfillment fanfiction. (I think it's great for people to write fanfiction like that, but since the focus is on that person and their own wish-fulfillment, I think it can be hard for other people to connect to.)
Now, onto the inaccuracies issue. I'm going to start with the one that I consider the biggest issue, in the hopes that maybe the authors will read this and consider some continuing education on this subject. In chapter 10, when it's talking about IFS therapy, it says, "An IFS therapist would help Rogue to identify her Self among the sea of different people's parts and, from there, guide Rogue in learning how to talk with and lead these parts rather than having them lead her into dissociative identity disorder." Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is something that starts early in a child's development. It's a complex dissociative disorder caused by experiencing severe, repeated trauma, often at the hands of one or more caregivers, and it can only develop in infancy through early childhood (I usually hear age 6 as the cutoff, though some suggest it can develop up to age 9). It's also very firmly separate from IFS, to the point that the creator of IFS has started his opinion to be that DID doesn't even exist in the way the DSM and ICD conceptualize it, but that it's all just "dissociated parts." I can't stress enough how damaging this misconception can be to people who actually have DID. The idea that there's one real Self in there somewhere who should be leading the rest of the system, instead of all "parts" or alters being a part of the same whole (i.e., none are more or less the "real Self" than any of the others) and needing to learn to cooperate together. Also, viewing "parts" or alters through the narrow, one-dimensional lenses of the roles IFS provides means not getting a full picture of each member of the system, a high risk of losing trust with non-host members of the system due to disregarding their sense of individuality and autonomy, as well as potentially leading to harmful suggestions. For example, in IFS, the behaviors of a "manager" are generally viewed as less healthy, often based in avoidance, so part of the work will often entail asking the manager to "step back," ultimately allowing the "Self" to lead. In DID, protectors (a role found in many DID systems) arguably have a similar role to IFS "managers," in that they typically protect the system and particularly trauma holders from danger, overwhelm, etc., and sometimes do so in ways that are "excessive" or ultimately not so helpful. However, asking a protector to stop fronting could be disastrous for the system. For example, the host (the one most people assume to be the "Self" when they try to apply an IFS lens to DID) may have a strong fawn, freeze, or collapse response and have severe difficulties asserting themselves, or even protecting themselves from actual potential threats. The protector may hold key information, such as noticing somebody overstepping boundaries, and may be one of if not THE only one in the system who has the skills to say things like, "If you continue to insult me, I'm going to end this conversation." So instead of telling the protector to just stay out of it, you'd want to help the rest of the system listen to the protector, consider the protector's perspective, and decide together how to move forward based on that; in the long run you'd want others in the system to also have those assertiveness skills, but one strength in that situation is that the protector could actually help teach them those.
Now, going back to the example from the book, I'll admit I don't know anything about X-Men. If Rogue canonically has some kind of superpower-based "pseudo-DID," then so be it. But these are authors who I think understand that words and narratives matter, and DID is one that has been particularly misunderstood; it would have been much better not to have bought that into the IFS conversation. So I hope they might consider rectifying this in a future edition of the book.
The other inaccuracies are less bothersome because they're just fandom things. But I'll include them anyway because I did personally find them pretty off-putting. They both are about the Steven Universe section. The clearest issue is that they refer to Garnet as a fusion of "a man and a woman," which is... inaccurate, and lesbian/wlw erasure. This book came out a couple years after the 2018 episode "Reunited," which had stirred up significant controversy (to the point of being related to the show's untimely cancelation) due to how unambiguously clear they made it that Ruby and Sapphire are two female(-coded) gems in love with one another... so I'm not really sure why the authors refer to Garnet this way.
The other is more of a character interpretation difference I guess, but I don't love how a queer neurodivergent-coded woman(-coded gem) was framed as disproportionately being in the wrong for... one of the things that I read as pointing to her being neurodivergent-coded (sensory processing issues with food). The authors argue that this is instead an internalizion of human beauty standards. I can understand why at a glance that seems plausible, considering Pearl's form is so thin. But there are a lot of reasons this doesn't make sense to me: 1) she was literally made that way, with a similar body type to other Pearls, who were created by Homeworld, who had little to no knowledge of Earth or its customs and values (remember the zoo??? and even that was only after Rose started showing interest in humanity, thus after Pearls already existed); 2) until Steven was born, Pearl paid very little attention to humankind, to the point that even in Steven Universe Future, she doesn't seem to understand the purpose of toilet paper; 3) looking at who Pearl has been shown to be attracted to (Rose Quartz, Mystery Girl, Bismuth iirc), I really don't think she has a dislike of bigger bodies; and 4) as far as we know, food intake has no bearing on gems' light forms (physical bodies), so I'm not sure she would even think to make that association. In the grand scheme of things this is just one person's headcanon vs another's, but as someone who heard Pearl describe her visceral discomfort with eating and immediately connected with her because I'd never before (or even since) seen a character with such relatable sensory processing differences like that, I just needed to give my two cents, I guess.
As someone who has long been aware of the ways in which I've used fandom as a (usually) healthy way to process my emotions, explore what it might look like if I made changes in my own life through the eyes of a character in a similar enough position, and so on, I expected to love this book. Unfortunately, it just didn't land for me.
I could see this book being helpful for some people who are very into their fandoms and are maybe on the fence about trying therapy, or have tried it and had less than ideal experiences, or are trying to cope until they can find or afford the right therapist. There are definitely some decent takeaways in the book's process, even if I have some issues with aspects of the content.
I have mixed feelings about the writing style. On the one hand, it was written in approachable language, without a lot of therapy jargon, which I appreciate. And I appreciated the way that the chapters were divided into small subsections, which can make a text more accessible for those of us who have a hard time sustaining attention. I also appreciate that they balance the individual with the systemic, such as addressing the fact that the individual and even family narrative isn't the whole picture -- narrative won't stop systemic oppression, but rather can be used to cope with it while seeking ways to create change.
On the other hand, instead of therapy jargon, it's absolutely filled with fandom jargon from specific shows and games. The authors usually use a footnote to give a general gist of what they're talking about, and that's helpful, but it's a lot to try to understand if you're also unfamiliar with the concepts the book is describing. The other issue here is that there are a LOT of footnotes, most of which are actually just the authors interjecting their opinion on a fandom topic or making a joke. As someone who, again, has a hard time sustaining attention, it was really frustrating when I'd be in the flow of reading, see a footnote, look to see if it was important... and find out that my flow was disrupted to say something to the effect of "this is our favorite character, because he's clearly the best!" Since this is a book about fandom, I get the intention here to make it feel relatable, but for me personally it was too much and made the book hard to read.
The "mini fanfic" therapy sessions were also really... off-putting for me. Maybe I would have benefited more from a different way of giving examples. I know that their intention was to be brief, so it isn't supposed to be an especially realistic depiction of therapy, but every single session goes like this: "The character(s) sit down, often with one or more being reluctant about being in therapy. Despite that, within 5 minutes of knowing these therapists, they're showing far more emotional awareness and vulnerability than they've ever shown in the canon. The therapists give them basically a summary of the chapter we just read. The characters have an emotional reaction to this apparent revelation, often with uncharacteristic crying, agree that the therapists have a point, and decide to keep coming to therapy to work on it some more." I can understand why writing themselves as basically superhero therapists to all their favorite characters would be helpful for the authors, but as a reader, it broke my suspension of disbelief too much to enjoy it as a story. I appreciate having chapter summaries, so I read them for that, but I was awkwardly aware that I was literally writing somebody else's self-insert wish-fulfillment fanfiction. (I think it's great for people to write fanfiction like that, but since the focus is on that person and their own wish-fulfillment, I think it can be hard for other people to connect to.)
Now, onto the inaccuracies issue. I'm going to start with the one that I consider the biggest issue, in the hopes that maybe the authors will read this and consider some continuing education on this subject. In chapter 10, when it's talking about IFS therapy, it says, "An IFS therapist would help Rogue to identify her Self among the sea of different people's parts and, from there, guide Rogue in learning how to talk with and lead these parts rather than having them lead her into dissociative identity disorder." Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is something that starts early in a child's development. It's a complex dissociative disorder caused by experiencing severe, repeated trauma, often at the hands of one or more caregivers, and it can only develop in infancy through early childhood (I usually hear age 6 as the cutoff, though some suggest it can develop up to age 9). It's also very firmly separate from IFS, to the point that the creator of IFS has started his opinion to be that DID doesn't even exist in the way the DSM and ICD conceptualize it, but that it's all just "dissociated parts." I can't stress enough how damaging this misconception can be to people who actually have DID. The idea that there's one real Self in there somewhere who should be leading the rest of the system, instead of all "parts" or alters being a part of the same whole (i.e., none are more or less the "real Self" than any of the others) and needing to learn to cooperate together. Also, viewing "parts" or alters through the narrow, one-dimensional lenses of the roles IFS provides means not getting a full picture of each member of the system, a high risk of losing trust with non-host members of the system due to disregarding their sense of individuality and autonomy, as well as potentially leading to harmful suggestions. For example, in IFS, the behaviors of a "manager" are generally viewed as less healthy, often based in avoidance, so part of the work will often entail asking the manager to "step back," ultimately allowing the "Self" to lead. In DID, protectors (a role found in many DID systems) arguably have a similar role to IFS "managers," in that they typically protect the system and particularly trauma holders from danger, overwhelm, etc., and sometimes do so in ways that are "excessive" or ultimately not so helpful. However, asking a protector to stop fronting could be disastrous for the system. For example, the host (the one most people assume to be the "Self" when they try to apply an IFS lens to DID) may have a strong fawn, freeze, or collapse response and have severe difficulties asserting themselves, or even protecting themselves from actual potential threats. The protector may hold key information, such as noticing somebody overstepping boundaries, and may be one of if not THE only one in the system who has the skills to say things like, "If you continue to insult me, I'm going to end this conversation." So instead of telling the protector to just stay out of it, you'd want to help the rest of the system listen to the protector, consider the protector's perspective, and decide together how to move forward based on that; in the long run you'd want others in the system to also have those assertiveness skills, but one strength in that situation is that the protector could actually help teach them those.
Now, going back to the example from the book, I'll admit I don't know anything about X-Men. If Rogue canonically has some kind of superpower-based "pseudo-DID," then so be it. But these are authors who I think understand that words and narratives matter, and DID is one that has been particularly misunderstood; it would have been much better not to have bought that into the IFS conversation. So I hope they might consider rectifying this in a future edition of the book.
The other inaccuracies are less bothersome because they're just fandom things. But I'll include them anyway because I did personally find them pretty off-putting. They both are about the Steven Universe section. The clearest issue is that they refer to Garnet as a fusion of "a man and a woman," which is... inaccurate, and lesbian/wlw erasure. This book came out a couple years after the 2018 episode "Reunited," which had stirred up significant controversy (to the point of being related to the show's untimely cancelation) due to how unambiguously clear they made it that Ruby and Sapphire are two female(-coded) gems in love with one another... so I'm not really sure why the authors refer to Garnet this way.
The other is more of a character interpretation difference I guess, but I don't love how a queer neurodivergent-coded woman(-coded gem) was framed as disproportionately being in the wrong for... one of the things that I read as pointing to her being neurodivergent-coded (sensory processing issues with food). The authors argue that this is instead an internalizion of human beauty standards. I can understand why at a glance that seems plausible, considering Pearl's form is so thin. But there are a lot of reasons this doesn't make sense to me: 1) she was literally made that way, with a similar body type to other Pearls, who were created by Homeworld, who had little to no knowledge of Earth or its customs and values (remember the zoo??? and even that was only after Rose started showing interest in humanity, thus after Pearls already existed); 2) until Steven was born, Pearl paid very little attention to humankind, to the point that even in Steven Universe Future, she doesn't seem to understand the purpose of toilet paper; 3) looking at who Pearl has been shown to be attracted to (Rose Quartz, Mystery Girl, Bismuth iirc), I really don't think she has a dislike of bigger bodies; and 4) as far as we know, food intake has no bearing on gems' light forms (physical bodies), so I'm not sure she would even think to make that association. In the grand scheme of things this is just one person's headcanon vs another's, but as someone who heard Pearl describe her visceral discomfort with eating and immediately connected with her because I'd never before (or even since) seen a character with such relatable sensory processing differences like that, I just needed to give my two cents, I guess.
May 21, 2021
In the Starship Therapise book, authors Garski and Mastin dabble in a never ending exposition of how gaming culture and fanfiction are the new panacea of the psychological and medical cures.
Number 1, Garski and Mastin come against over 50 years of clinical work that describes obesity as a disease with mono- and polygenetic causes, amplified by prenatal, nutritional, lifestyle and psychological factors. Body Mass Index as a single tool for evaluating obesity is inappropriate - this is why Body Composition is a better approach. Assuming that ANY body size is normal and obese people should simply stay obese, and fend their inherent risk factors (including the dreaded Covid-19 infection) by *nutrition mindfulness* and yoga is indeed clinical malpraxis. Tell this lie to a 12 year old boy who is obese and develops type 2 diabetes and parents are seeking help. These politically-correct ideas are dangerous.
Number 2, had Garski and Mastin been unbiased, they would have been responsible and mention one clinical trial assessing violent video games and behavior. Multiple clinical trials and metaanalysis studies (Europe, Asia, USA) show that “violent video games increase aggression and aggression-related variables and decrease prosocial outcomes, including gun use behavior in children”. Even Psychology Today website has published articles detailing the results of longitudinal experiments confirming the “risk of desensitization while playing violent video games”. Word of the wise to Garski and Mastin, cherry-picking science is not the practice of mental health professionals but of charlatans treating people like sheep.
Number 3, the problem with the epigenetics of trauma in utero is that it automatically assumes that there is no possibility of healing - no reversal. It rests in the absolutism of the “inborn” or “congenital” patterns of behavior to justify victimhood mentality, entitlement, antisocial personality and unwillingness to heal because “I was born traumatized”. If this is the case, why has the medical field devoted decades of research on inborn errors of metabolism and congenital malformation? The “woke” concept of generational trauma is a mental constraint to personal growth, emotional healing and maturity. It uses the incorrect absolutism of “White Mental Frame vs. the Black Mental Frame” to promote hate, discord, social resentment, shame and victimization dialogue among the people. *Verbalize to Normalize* is simply a way to victimize oneself and be stuck in trauma. There are counterfeits to emotional healing; make no mistake, THIS is one of them.
Number 4, applying fanfiction therapy to Fantasy Prone Personalities is as unsafe as it sounds. Subjects prone to fantasy are less likely to be able to differentiate between the fantasy and reality and are at high risk of presenting cluster A personality disorders, dissociative personality disorder and other signs of maladjustment. Imagine telling a patient that with the *Westworld Construct* they can question their own reality and they should engage in Real Person Fiction. Evidently, Garski and Mastin use this “fanfiction” therapy for all their patients - one recipe for everyone. I wonder if this is an example of socialized medicine where “all lives matter” therefore we treat them all the same? That is the definition of insanity, BTW.
Number 5, the cherry on top is that depression cannot be cured, just kept in the “Upside Down”. There is a real price to pay for keeping something as debilitating as depression “under wraps”, rather than actually working with your patient to find stability, permanence in treatment, healing and fulfillment. Prayer has been used in multiple randomized clinical trials, showing that private prayer is “associated with a significant benefit for depression, optimism, coping, and other mental health conditions such as anxiety.” So instead of using repression techniques to treat depression, wouldn't it be better to use true compassion, emotional healing and a true ancillary method like prayer to help the patient?
Overall, this book is deceiving, dangerous, and offers a vague proposal for therapy based on lies. Fanfiction to “rewrite your life” is a lie, because fanfiction is indeed a made-up story. A lie.
Number 1, Garski and Mastin come against over 50 years of clinical work that describes obesity as a disease with mono- and polygenetic causes, amplified by prenatal, nutritional, lifestyle and psychological factors. Body Mass Index as a single tool for evaluating obesity is inappropriate - this is why Body Composition is a better approach. Assuming that ANY body size is normal and obese people should simply stay obese, and fend their inherent risk factors (including the dreaded Covid-19 infection) by *nutrition mindfulness* and yoga is indeed clinical malpraxis. Tell this lie to a 12 year old boy who is obese and develops type 2 diabetes and parents are seeking help. These politically-correct ideas are dangerous.
Number 2, had Garski and Mastin been unbiased, they would have been responsible and mention one clinical trial assessing violent video games and behavior. Multiple clinical trials and metaanalysis studies (Europe, Asia, USA) show that “violent video games increase aggression and aggression-related variables and decrease prosocial outcomes, including gun use behavior in children”. Even Psychology Today website has published articles detailing the results of longitudinal experiments confirming the “risk of desensitization while playing violent video games”. Word of the wise to Garski and Mastin, cherry-picking science is not the practice of mental health professionals but of charlatans treating people like sheep.
Number 3, the problem with the epigenetics of trauma in utero is that it automatically assumes that there is no possibility of healing - no reversal. It rests in the absolutism of the “inborn” or “congenital” patterns of behavior to justify victimhood mentality, entitlement, antisocial personality and unwillingness to heal because “I was born traumatized”. If this is the case, why has the medical field devoted decades of research on inborn errors of metabolism and congenital malformation? The “woke” concept of generational trauma is a mental constraint to personal growth, emotional healing and maturity. It uses the incorrect absolutism of “White Mental Frame vs. the Black Mental Frame” to promote hate, discord, social resentment, shame and victimization dialogue among the people. *Verbalize to Normalize* is simply a way to victimize oneself and be stuck in trauma. There are counterfeits to emotional healing; make no mistake, THIS is one of them.
Number 4, applying fanfiction therapy to Fantasy Prone Personalities is as unsafe as it sounds. Subjects prone to fantasy are less likely to be able to differentiate between the fantasy and reality and are at high risk of presenting cluster A personality disorders, dissociative personality disorder and other signs of maladjustment. Imagine telling a patient that with the *Westworld Construct* they can question their own reality and they should engage in Real Person Fiction. Evidently, Garski and Mastin use this “fanfiction” therapy for all their patients - one recipe for everyone. I wonder if this is an example of socialized medicine where “all lives matter” therefore we treat them all the same? That is the definition of insanity, BTW.
Number 5, the cherry on top is that depression cannot be cured, just kept in the “Upside Down”. There is a real price to pay for keeping something as debilitating as depression “under wraps”, rather than actually working with your patient to find stability, permanence in treatment, healing and fulfillment. Prayer has been used in multiple randomized clinical trials, showing that private prayer is “associated with a significant benefit for depression, optimism, coping, and other mental health conditions such as anxiety.” So instead of using repression techniques to treat depression, wouldn't it be better to use true compassion, emotional healing and a true ancillary method like prayer to help the patient?
Overall, this book is deceiving, dangerous, and offers a vague proposal for therapy based on lies. Fanfiction to “rewrite your life” is a lie, because fanfiction is indeed a made-up story. A lie.
June 16, 2021
I really enjoyed this book - both as a good read, and as a thought provoking and inspiring source for personal growth, by looking at my life in a more forgiving and fruitful way. Just a great clever concept, really well executed in fresh and insightful ways.
June 2, 2023
Self-help for nerds? Yes please.
Take a hero’s journey to healing with the Starship Enterprise, Legend of Zelda, Supernatural and so many other fandoms in this book. Not only are there amazing, perspective changing thoughts and techniques, but also yoga and meditation exercises with mindful guides through the practice. I loved this book.
Take a hero’s journey to healing with the Starship Enterprise, Legend of Zelda, Supernatural and so many other fandoms in this book. Not only are there amazing, perspective changing thoughts and techniques, but also yoga and meditation exercises with mindful guides through the practice. I loved this book.
May 23, 2021
As a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) and a self-proclaimed queer geek with mental health struggles of my own, I give this book my whole-hearted recommendation. We as humans are wired for story; it's how we connect with ourselves, with each other, and with the world. And yet, for decades - if not centuries - stories have been derided as kid stuff, shunted to the side as we grew up, and play was derided as useless drivel. Yet, we know - as therapists, as helpers, as a people who can now see how stories are neurobiologically part of us - that we need stories. And this book is the perfect marriage of fandom (stories) and therapeutic ideas, packaged in the intersectional and difficult world we're living in.
While many therapists would shy away from the political, Mastin and Garski, both LMFTs, walk straight into it. We live in a political world, where race and gender and global pandemics and climate change ABSOLUTELY affect our mental health, and the health of our society. To disconnect that reality from the therapy space - both in self-help and in actual therapeutic offices - is disingenuous and harmful. This book gives you the tools you need to harness your own inner Luke Skywalker or Picard (or Thor or Black Panther or Hermione, or Frodo, or Link, or any number of other fandom favorites) to tackle life's challenges, from being in relationship (and setting boundaries) to trauma (and posttraumatic growth) to anxiety and depression to grief and loss and so much more. This is done with humor and in small sections, making it digestible and relatable. Each chapter breaks down big concepts and teaches useful tools, and includes a fanfiction of a therapy session to further illustrate those concepts.
What's more, the authors invite you to practice those skills in every chapter - with discussion questions, questions throughout the chapters they encourage you to reflect on, and a yoga or mindfulness/meditation exercise (which, with the purchase of the book, you can access videos of the exercises in addition to the lovely illustrations within the book). These exercises are fresh and fun, new takes on age-old practices, skillfully melding stories that resonate with us to the tools we've known for centuries.
This book is an amazing new look on narrative therapeutic practices, among others, and how to rewrite your life using your favorite characters as guides and inspirations. It encourages you to reconnect with play and creativity in whatever way makes sense for you. It is balanced with serious content and humor, and it doesn't shy away from hard conversations about the world we've inherited and what we can do about it. I already know I'll be using many of these tools in my practice as a mental health professional, and that I'll be encouraging this book to many people, and using the tools myself. Some of these meditations have already worked their way into weekly practices for me and I think they'll be relatable to any lover of stories who picks up this book.
While many therapists would shy away from the political, Mastin and Garski, both LMFTs, walk straight into it. We live in a political world, where race and gender and global pandemics and climate change ABSOLUTELY affect our mental health, and the health of our society. To disconnect that reality from the therapy space - both in self-help and in actual therapeutic offices - is disingenuous and harmful. This book gives you the tools you need to harness your own inner Luke Skywalker or Picard (or Thor or Black Panther or Hermione, or Frodo, or Link, or any number of other fandom favorites) to tackle life's challenges, from being in relationship (and setting boundaries) to trauma (and posttraumatic growth) to anxiety and depression to grief and loss and so much more. This is done with humor and in small sections, making it digestible and relatable. Each chapter breaks down big concepts and teaches useful tools, and includes a fanfiction of a therapy session to further illustrate those concepts.
What's more, the authors invite you to practice those skills in every chapter - with discussion questions, questions throughout the chapters they encourage you to reflect on, and a yoga or mindfulness/meditation exercise (which, with the purchase of the book, you can access videos of the exercises in addition to the lovely illustrations within the book). These exercises are fresh and fun, new takes on age-old practices, skillfully melding stories that resonate with us to the tools we've known for centuries.
This book is an amazing new look on narrative therapeutic practices, among others, and how to rewrite your life using your favorite characters as guides and inspirations. It encourages you to reconnect with play and creativity in whatever way makes sense for you. It is balanced with serious content and humor, and it doesn't shy away from hard conversations about the world we've inherited and what we can do about it. I already know I'll be using many of these tools in my practice as a mental health professional, and that I'll be encouraging this book to many people, and using the tools myself. Some of these meditations have already worked their way into weekly practices for me and I think they'll be relatable to any lover of stories who picks up this book.
July 28, 2021
I'm not entirely where to start explaining this book.
The authors are both clinical psychologists, and they take the unusual and interesting tack here of calling on fandom attachments (which they note are both real and important) to create some useful self-help techniques.
While none of the examples were "my fandoms," per se (okay, maybe "Gremlins" ...), they worked well to explain various concepts. For example, the idea that you may have constructed a faulty reality is examined via "Westworld," along with advice for how to examine your perceptions and change them.
Each chapter ends with either a yoga exercise (charmingly illustrated) or some journalling prompts for further thought and reflection.
Overall, this was a delightful and interesting mental health/self-help book that I can see myself both recommending and revisiting.
The authors are both clinical psychologists, and they take the unusual and interesting tack here of calling on fandom attachments (which they note are both real and important) to create some useful self-help techniques.
While none of the examples were "my fandoms," per se (okay, maybe "Gremlins" ...), they worked well to explain various concepts. For example, the idea that you may have constructed a faulty reality is examined via "Westworld," along with advice for how to examine your perceptions and change them.
Each chapter ends with either a yoga exercise (charmingly illustrated) or some journalling prompts for further thought and reflection.
Overall, this was a delightful and interesting mental health/self-help book that I can see myself both recommending and revisiting.
November 21, 2021
I received a copy of this book through the Amazon Vine program in exchange for an honest review.
This was around 3.5 stars for me.
This is a surprisingly interesting read! The book talks about different pop culture references and what they teach us about ourselves and each other. The book uses different characters as examples for different skills and traits. The book includes yoga poses based on various characters, summaries of what to take from each chapter, and self-care ideas.
It's an interesting breakdown of how characters we admire can help us learn skills that make us more resilient.
This was around 3.5 stars for me.
This is a surprisingly interesting read! The book talks about different pop culture references and what they teach us about ourselves and each other. The book uses different characters as examples for different skills and traits. The book includes yoga poses based on various characters, summaries of what to take from each chapter, and self-care ideas.
It's an interesting breakdown of how characters we admire can help us learn skills that make us more resilient.
January 17, 2025
I appreciated the authors using references to "geek culture" while explaining different therapy situations but I feel like it was a little too much. So much of the writing was throwing out multiple references that frankly I got lost in. I also think this book is good if you have no reference to the therapeutic process. A lot of the suggestions were very basic and just skim the surface.
Overall, worth a read for those who want to delve deeper into their own mind to understand why they may feel the way they do and how to overcome challenges using something that is comfortable and familiar to them.
I do plan to check out the authors podcast.
Overall, worth a read for those who want to delve deeper into their own mind to understand why they may feel the way they do and how to overcome challenges using something that is comfortable and familiar to them.
I do plan to check out the authors podcast.
September 4, 2022
I honestly picked up this book because of the title and cover and my love of Star Trek. I don't usually read self help books cause I don't really understand what is trying to be conveyed by the author. I might understand it more if I was engaged in it with a therapist or something. I actually didn't even finish the book completely. I had plenty of opportunity to read it. I just don't really like non-fiction. It's just not my thing.
December 18, 2024
Low 3.
I really do appreciate what this book was trying to do, and in some ways, I do think it got there.
But the in-book fanfic was weird, and so was the way things were pieced together, unfortunately.
I still used some of these exercises, and they did still take me somewhere, but I just wish it would have been deeper.
I really do appreciate what this book was trying to do, and in some ways, I do think it got there.
But the in-book fanfic was weird, and so was the way things were pieced together, unfortunately.
I still used some of these exercises, and they did still take me somewhere, but I just wish it would have been deeper.
May 9, 2021
This was a very interesting book and concept. I have to be honest I liked some of it and others parts I didn’t. But this is going to be your preference. In some parts I feel the authors were trying to hard to fit all their points into the different fandoms. Still a good read.
July 15, 2021
Got about halfway through. It's not bad, but it was more therapy and less fanfiction, and less fanfiction specifically and more fandom activities in general. Some might find it useful, but it wasn't what I was looking for.
July 24, 2021
Quite the frustrating read. A nice idea, one I can personally vouch for having worked out my own problems through my own work of fictions. However, the authors decide to get VERY political. Why? That is not needed. Come now.
August 20, 2022
As someone who once wrote a number one ranked story on Wattpad, I can tell you that it actually made me more clinically insane than I already was. This method did not work, I am hugging a body pillow in my room and I actually think someone is there.
June 17, 2021
Interesting and wonderful artwork. This was a Goodreads giveaway winner.
December 24, 2021
I'm pretty sure I've never read a self-help book, but when I saw this one, I was very intrigued. I've been a self proclaimed 'nerd' for basically my whole life and have read fanfcition for quite a long time (though not as much as I used to) so I was very curious to see how this would work. I loved the way different fandoms are used to focus on different issues and the techniques on how to help. I've never been a gamer, so I was concerned that I would feel a bit disconnected when those were used, but everything was well described and I felt I didn't miss a step. I appreciated the way therapy was talked about, how there's different types of therapy and that you should search for a therapist who works for you and quit one who doesn't, I feel like that's not talked about enough, at least that I see. If you're into all things geeky and are on the lookout for a self-help type book, I definitely recommend checking this one out!
May 4, 2025
Reading challenge category - Hoffbensen 2024: Published in 2021 (2)
I really wanted to like this book; nerdcore and fandoms mixed with psychology?! But the book did not measure up to its intent. Instead of actually being an assessment of scenes from fiction and translating that to self-help/psychology principles, it just felt like an opportunity for the authors to write their own fanfiction and express their own views about the works they were discussing.
I really wanted to like this book; nerdcore and fandoms mixed with psychology?! But the book did not measure up to its intent. Instead of actually being an assessment of scenes from fiction and translating that to self-help/psychology principles, it just felt like an opportunity for the authors to write their own fanfiction and express their own views about the works they were discussing.
August 16, 2025
but the main point here is that although Dark Phoenix is connected to the real Jean Grey, she is a separate entity. Anxiety often sounds like us—it makes use of our mind just like our own thoughts-but it is not the authentic Self.
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