Meet One of the Pioneers of Applied Tabletop Games

In a new and emerging field that is still heavily under-researched, Dr. Megan Connell is one of a few working in the field to push to new horizons and innovations.

Dr. Connell is a licensed clinical psychologist, author, and content creator. She’s a co-founder of Health Quest Innovative Therapeutics, a group practice that promises typical wellness and health therapy with media, technology, games, and science. On their website, they claim to incorporate tabletop gaming, technology, and virtual reality, among other things. She is a board member for Geek Therapeutics, a group promising to integrate geek culture into therapeutic practices and offering continued education certificates to licensed providers, professionals, and companies. 

She’s also a co-founder of Geeks Like Us, a media company focused on serving the “unapologetically enthusiastic”. A term Dr. Connell says is what being a Geek truly means. The Geeks Like Us YouTube page channel you can find several different shows exploring the intersection of wellness, therapy, and geekery. Dr. Connell created the series Psychology at the Table as an aid for those running TTRPGs for players struggling with things like anxiety and depression. Under Geeks Like she also hosts the Brain Noodles podcast, focused on talking about all things video games, TTRPG, and psychology related.  She is the game master for Clinical Role, an actual play D&D campaign for therapeutic game masters, psychologists, mental health professionals and more.

Finally, she wrote Tabletop Tabletop Role-Playing Therapy: A Guide for the Clinician Game Master, a book I found equal parts fascinating and valuable and one I highly recommend if you want to learn more about the process and best practices within Applied Gaming.