Matrices of psychic and relational development

With hindsight, it becomes clear that these two worlds — video games and books — can constitute genuine matrices of psychic and relational development. Not explicitly or didactically, but through gradual immersion in stories, systems of rules, symbolic worlds and human interactions. They are testing grounds for reality, spaces where invisible yet fundamental skills are built.

From very early on, these two worlds can coexist and feed each other.

In narrative games, such as some of the great sagas of the Final Fantasy kind, the player is plunged into complex stories interweaving existential themes: sacrifice, destiny, memory, family ties, loss. These experiences are not merely observed; they are lived. The player accompanies the characters over time, forms attachments, passes through intense emotions. They become a witness, but also an actor.

Alongside this, reading gives access to a plurality of points of view. To read is to enter another person’s subjectivity. It is to try out different ways of thinking, of feeling, of interpreting the world. This capacity to inhabit varied perspectives is an essential foundation for developing a form of decentring that is indispensable in the relational professions.

These two modes — acting in a world and inhabiting a point of view — together contribute to a fundamental skill:

Reality is a construction

Long before any theoretical training, these experiences can lead to a central intuition of systemic and constructivist approaches: reality is a construction. Every story, whether it comes from a book or a game, proposes a version of the world. Every character embodies a way of making sense of events. Exposed to this diversity of narratives, the subject gradually learns that what they perceive as “reality” is only one interpretation among others.

This realisation profoundly transforms our relationship to others. It opens onto a less judgemental stance, more curious, more attentive to the inner logic of behaviour. It makes it possible to move:

Reading, in particular, is a powerful tool for this transformation. It allows us to slow down, to enter another person’s thinking, to understand motivations, contradictions, dilemmas. It develops a form of cognitive empathy that goes beyond simple emotional identification.

The player’s active engagement

Video games add a specific dimension to this exploration: that of active engagement. Unlike reading, where the reader remains outside the action, the player is involved in the decisions. They take part in constructing the story. In narrative games, this involvement strengthens the attachment to the characters. The emotions experienced — sadness, joy, frustration — are not merely observed; they are co-produced by the player’s actions. This dimension fosters an embodied understanding of relational dynamics: loyalty, betrayal, sacrifice, cooperation.

Social games, laboratories of relationship

But it is above all in social games that this dimension comes fully into its own. With the emergence of massively multiplayer games such as World of Warcraft, the gaming experience changes in nature. The game is no longer limited to interaction with a system; it becomes a space of human relationships. In these environments, players must cooperate, organise themselves, negotiate. They face challenges very close to those found in real groups: managing conflict, coordinating action, regulating emotions, articulating individual and collective motivations.

These spaces then become genuine social laboratories. They make it possible to observe group dynamics in real time: leadership, exclusion, alliances, rivalries. They offer concrete experience of the complexity of human interactions. This kind of experience can have lasting effects on the understanding of relational systems. It develops skills that can be drawn on directly in professional contexts, particularly in the helping professions.

When style opens a new dimension

On the reading side, an important step can occur when attention shifts from content to form. As long as reading is centred on the story, it already allows immersion and an understanding of narratives. But when the reader discovers style, a new dimension opens up. This discovery transforms the relationship to texts. It leads to exploring authors as much for their writing as for their stories. It opens onto a finer sensitivity to nuances, rhythms, the unspoken.

These readings develop a capacity to perceive detail, to name subtle inner experiences. They enrich the emotional vocabulary, which is essential in professions where the task is to help people put words to what they are living through.

Literature offers a reservoir of formulations, metaphors and descriptions that can be drawn on in clinical practice. It refines the understanding of lived experience and helps in accompanying people through a work of elaboration.

Seen this way, reading is not merely about accumulating knowledge, but about developing a sensitivity. A capacity to perceive and to translate the complexity of human experience.

Learning patience

Another point video games and reading have in common lies in the learning of patience. Committing to a long work, whether a narrative game or a novel, involves a temporality quite different from that of fast consumption. In a world marked by immediacy, this capacity becomes precious. It is an antidote to excessive simplification and to the flattening of complex phenomena.

With hindsight, it becomes clear that video games and reading can be regarded as informal schools of life. They do not transmit knowledge explicitly, but they shape fundamental skills.