AMA: Mental Health Q&A with Eve Crevoshay

[Music] hello welcome to this ask me anything session uh i'm alex warren from kamasutra and i am joined today by uh take this executive director eve crevice jay eva thank you so much for joining us thank you alex i appreciate it we were joking just before the start that you were going to introduce me as take two director and uh you managed it wasn't even joke it was so close i was like now the important thing about this session is that uh these fine folks in chat are gonna get to ask you questions about your work and your role in the industry and sort of where you see it going so folks in chat please drop questions in use the question feature upload stuff and we are going to serve up your finest questions i'm really excited and with that i'm also going to mute slack because of course these are the things we need to do these days

yeah i probably smear a couple of different things as you go about clicking all these buttons and doing all the real things why don't you uh as you feel comfortable sort of fill us in on what you've been doing to take this recently and sort of how you got into the industry yeah absolutely so i've been take this for two years now uh and in that time i really focused the work uh that we do on mental health to be um to to be on uh root causes so what are the things that um that cause mental distress and what are the the factors that can that we can change that can help people experience better mental health in the game industry as they play games and in communities that surround games and in streaming environments and so we think a lot about what are the things we can do to create systemic change and what are the ways that we can normalize a conversation about mental health and mental well-being and self-care so that people understand that

it's one okay and normal to not be okay and two it's really fantastic to get help and seek support from communities for mental health professionals etc so we want to work to normalize the conversation from the individual level and we also want to work to change the conditions that make mental wellness more possible in games right on yeah it's a fantastic organization we've already got some very good questions here in chat i'm just going to throw them at you if you don't mind awesome yeah please do nice we have one here from danny uh they want to know are demographic splits a serious consideration when tackling mental health in games or most concepts and concerns universal among all players oh that's a great question danny um yeah so there are there are both really substantial cultural differences in the way people understand and talk about mental health and mental well-being and then there are also differences in outcomes and the experience that different demographics have with mental health care in particular so

you have um culturally and geographically really dramatic differences in the way people understand what it means to have mental well-being and how that is treated or talked about culturally and take this really functions best in a european western european and north american context because that's what our version of mental health uh is that's what we're familiar with culturally um the other thing yeah and then in terms of the demographic differences about in the experience of mental health care um you know there's there's a lot of really good history and documentation about the um the specific ways in which uh black people have been pathologized through mental health care in really awful and prejudicial ways and so there's a historical distrust

and uh history of mistreatment of black people and mental health care for example so yes the answer is yes yeah that uh makes a ton of sense i am frustratingly in a conversation like this we could then go for another 20 minutes i think just talking about strategies to deal with that but there's already a bunch of other fantastic questions in here um do you want to sort of jump over for a sec because we sort of expand the topic and look at uh let's see tanla here had a good question uh how do you address mental health and alarm based chat in your workplace i guess sort of how people are beginning to discuss feeling strain feeling mental and wellness that kind of thing how do you how do you address that kind of conversation in an office environment [Music] yeah um especially since quarantine and since the pandemic has started that's been a really big deal and something we've we've created some workshops that we've offered to a couple of places and

and we've created a lot of resources we have actually a whole series of articles on our website takethis.org on coping with um workplace stress and stress in general um yeah i mean the the short answer is yes the longer answer is that the game industry um is prone to burnout it's a really major problem and that um that's caused by the high levels of uncertainty that people experience in the game industry and the cultural norms in the industry that relate to um uh kind of passion the this myth of passion um where you come and you put all of yourself into your work and and you have very little separation and very few boundaries um and that leads to burnout and stress and anxiety um which uh um and so so it's really it is the responsibility of supervisors and company leaders to have their pulse their their eyes on the pulse and to understand where

and be able to recognize signs of burnout and stress um and to to mitigate those um and there's there's there's responses that are kind of personal and individual and then the responsibilities and mitigation efforts that can happen at a company or structural level um uh in in that in terms of what's happening specifically in the pandemic there's there's a really major increase among managers in number and work while exhausting in terms of providing support to um i agree i mean i i hadn't really considered the um the new burdens being placed upon folks for communication and sort of maintain team morale on an individual level for folks who you know who are logging in from home now for months and months at a time or logging into this

maybe this conference we can dig in there nathaniel uh the first thing i know is that after a day of convention like this i already feel overwhelmed and a bit depressed is there any way to help with dealing with this in the field and i know we don't understand why dig into like specific strategies but like as people who are who are sort of logging in from home and either feeling very isolated or well never have both um what's what sort of suggestions would you have for how to deal with that yeah um yeah the i mean this is a very non non technical term but fomo right that's a that the there's there's a couple things going on when you you engage in a really intense experience like on like an online conference um one is you you feel like you have to to see it all and you have to catch it all and that's too much right so if you are feeling overwhelmed at the end of today that means probably that you've done more than you needed to do

you don't have to catch it all all of this is recorded all of this is going to be online down you know or most of it and um and that's okay it's okay to miss things it's okay to take breaks and step away and that's in fact quite healthy um we we as humans don't have the capacity to keep going and going and going and going um in the case of of this particular experience and in the case of work in general we do better when we take breaks that's why crunch is so harmful because it actually we are less effective when we work too much our brain stops functioning at its auto level and our body as well um so taking more breaks and allowing yourself to miss things um and also video interaction and online interaction taxes us emotionally you know i'm talking about this this emotional labor um because we don't get the same type of um interface with people and so we have to fill in the blanks a lot and so our

brains have to work harder and that is taxing and so right just knowing that we are we are we're having a sub we're having to correct for a sub-optimal experience in this time yeah for sure um and also you're not alone that's a normal experience right now this is a very strange experience those of us who've been to gdc before we know that this is not gc that we're used to right this is a very different experience and it's a little bit disappointing and that's okay absolutely yeah i um there's a bunch of great questions of course but i don't want to let one slip by it was asked a little while ago by matt and i think it's important a lot of people have voted up matt wants to know do you happen to have any experience with veterans gaming as it pertains to mental health of veterans um well i would i would actually um refer people to a great organization that we partner with um called stack up uh and they're they're a fantastic

organization that works specifically with veterans the the issue of mental health for veterans is really a major one and um and it's a real challenging one and take this it's not we don't specialize in working with veterans that's a very specific set of needs in population and culture that's very particular you know we take this itself became letter veteran literate and so i would say you know there are some great organizations out there that um that do know how to respond to veterans in a very particular way and and i and stack up in particular comes to mind yeah i think that's a great recommendation uh and relevant to take this work there was a question here from danger it was no uh how can a psychologist or a licensed counselor get involved to support take this as mission oh awesome question we love to have more people get involved um right actually we're recruiting for our first ever afk online so our afk room is a quiet supportive space at conventions that we provide

and staffed by clinical and non-clinical volunteers and we're spinning up for pax online our first ever online afk room we need volunteers if you go to our website to our contact us page you can you can get in touch with us and um i or one of my colleagues to you in short order all right let's jump back to the thought of uh mental health and kingdom company specifically josh asks some companies have been introducing mindfulness training as a form of encouraging mental health awareness do you feel this is an effective strategy towards opening the larger discussion of normalizing mental wellness that's a great question so mindfulness is a really powerful tool and it's a tool that's used in a couple of really great therapeutic approaches but it's just one of many tools it's one that's kind of easily accessible especially um because there's all these mindfulness apps out there headspace comes to mind

is the biggest one right a lot of people know about it and um it feels like an easy ad i think for a lot of companies i i don't think i think it's a great idea but it's like it's not a panacea right it's a starting point and it's one of many tools and for some people it may not be the right tool or it may not be the right delivery mechanism so um other people need other things but mindfulness you know mindfulness is super powerful i have found it personally extraordinary almost uh it's been transformative to me um but uh but it's this is you know mental well-being is a very personal individual thing and everybody's on their own path and so one-size-fits-all approach is never going to work for forever yeah i completely agree um there was actually another question sort of relevant i think there was uh nathaniel asked a little while ago how can companies and game companies specifically go about

presenting issues regarding mental health in a way that helps people understand how they might feel and uh i assume that's sort of a general empathy and an understanding of the yeah what do you think yeah so so that's a that's a great uh that's a really great question and a really powerful one too um the there's there's a couple of bits to the to my answer one is that games themselves tell stories and create metaphors for the way we understand the world and they both reflect society and can shape society can shape culture and so we have at our disposal in games an extraordinarily powerful tool to shape the conversation around mental health and there's some and mental well-being in general um there's some amazing games that have come out in the last few years that either uh represent uh self-care in a wonderful way or show a really accurate example of

mental illness or help to kind of walk people down the road of what it looks like and feels like to be in a certain state some of the ones that we've highlighted recently are um celeste and stardew valley and griss and sea of solitude and of course hellblade center with sacrifice the and so so the good representation of mental health and games is really important the other piece that i think is really important is to talk about how we how we use uh communities and the culture and norms inside game communities like in-game interaction and like community around games to to shape the way we talk about ourselves and to help people understand how they relate to each other and what's good so we can change the norms

to reflect positive support for mental health and well-being and um and positive uh interactions um victoria tran actually earlier today gave a great talk on um on creating you know positive community environments and her work at kit fox games is just fantastic and there are many others who think about this work as well um we and so so there's there's many ways that we can use our power as as um shapers and creators of community and uh shared online spaces to set norms around positive in online environments we have take this has uh streaming ambassadors who who do that in their streaming environments um they're moderators and and they themselves are really tr well trained um and experienced in creating positive environments and in shaping um spaces that are that that promote empathy and demonstrate empathy

um inside their communities oh that's super cool yeah that's really cool we kind of already addressed this question but i wonder if we can dig into it a little more daniel asked a little while ago um when building online communities what is the best way to approach harassment and mental health um they've already talked about the actual players themselves but i wonder for you know since you do so much work with game companies and game makers for people who are working on online games who are embedded in online communities and maybe how you know how to how do they deal with and how do they regulate the levels of harassment and kind of just mental drain that they are often subjected to and a role like that where you're public facing uh inside a game company have you seen any experience with that have you yeah yeah we um yeah we've actually worked with a number of companies to help um help their community teams either navigate except learn to set boundaries and and learn um develop some skills around that

so that they can better protect themselves um and also uh to understand better how to support people who are experiencing harassment yeah right um but but ultimately um the experience of of dealing with toxicity and harassment which is endemic to the industry and a major problem um is is the responsibility not of individual moderators and employees but of companies to develop structures that address it directly um and that means really uh strong technical solutions but also creating um and and and being really steadfast in in creating zero tolerance harassment policies and positive communities like there's a lot of good research out there that you can teach people empathy by um introducing them to community in environments that

promote empathy and that you can change people's behavior by bringing them into a community in a positive and constructive way and that only happens when the community is intentionally designed and that only happens when a company is intentionally designed and so the issue of toxicity and harassment does not start at the community design level it starts at the company dynamic and leadership level because if you have a company that accepts as its premise that harassment isn't okay and is unacceptable and that we want a positive space for our and a welcoming space for everyone who wants to play our game then you can design for that and only when you design for that can you get to the place where it's possible in a community that's a long process but that's where it starts

yeah it does seem like um you know especially with recent events at ubisoft and elsewhere like if you don't have buy-in and significant uh you know interested in enacting change at senior levels then it doesn't it seems like very challenging to enact serious you know company-wide change um it's i would i would actually um it's not uh very challenging it's impossible oh fair enough yeah absolutely yeah um there was a question about this that i want to get back to real quick uh here we go austin recently asked do you know of any proven practices you can recommend that a development firm can implement to foster a culture that's supportive of those living with or suffering from mental illness um oh gosh i've seen that the whole time but proven practices what do you think proven practices gosh um i mean that's a um it's not it's not proven practices it's um it's a culture that emphasizes humanity

that recognizes people's needs as people that uh that is highly transparent and that provides respect to people that provides the space and good boundaries to allow people to undertake good self-care right so good boundaries means good work uh work hour limits good boundaries around how much of your life is in in involved in your work good boundaries around what um when you can walk away completely um so it's it's about an orientation towards balance and wellness right and um and a support for that at the company level like an active advocating for people to to leave to take breaks to understand

what's going on to feel empowered to participate and have their opinion heard um uh yeah yeah there's a whole series of things like that yeah that sounds those all make a lot of sense to me and it's um it sounds like it really depends on the environment the team size um and sort of what kind of you know whether it's an indie or a big company you know that kind of yes yeah it shifts dramatically at a at a large company especially a large company with um uh you know public companies i think are in a very different position than private studios privately held studios absolutely yeah um there was another question here about a specific person's struggles here we go someone asks uh leah asks what suggestions do you have for someone with a diagnosed mental health issue who wants to reduce stigma around it through visibility but also doesn't want to cause discord with teammates who might not understand how do people who who have unique needs and who have who struggle with mental health express and make those struggles public and visible without um detracting from the team i guess

yeah um that's a tough one because there's there's enough um there's enough stigma about mental health and mental illness uh that people get really afraid when you start talking about it um the uh the the recommendation um so this is something actually we're actively working on and and we've got um uh our second annual uh game summit on mental health it's called tiggs and i work in in partnership with mark chandler on this um and we are we are in october we're going to be sharing stories of people in the game industry with mental health mental illness and um and talking specifically about that so that we can reduce the stigma and it's really about sharing as many of those stories as possible but but one of the ways to do that is to bring as much data to the conversation as possible so when you talk about your diagnosis i'll

also describe what it looks like and talk about what accommodation looks like and what you don't need you know i don't need sympathy or i don't need um you feel sorry for me i need you know specific accommodations or just i need you to know and i need you to be able to to look at me and see me as as the full person that i am yeah yeah you know it reminds me of you know we spoke briefly before or before this about the myth of passion and how it can be sort of turned against game developers to sort of burn them out and that kind of thing i wonder um do you have any thoughts on how workers in this industry can sort of avoid being you know like you know pulled by the by the by passion and by the call of their uh collaborators to work beyond their limits or to push their mental health into sort of unhealthy states so this is this i'm not gonna sugarcoat

this one because it's a tough one to answer because if you're in a company where the expectation is that you work and you work too much and you put all of yourself into your work and your supervisors and seniors do the same thing um it's going to feel like if you don't you're going to lose your job and if you're stuck in that job because you need it and can't leave and can't move out of it that that's a tough place to be in right um because what managers do and what leaders do sets the tone for the whole company so if you are a manager and a leader even if you tell your employees that they don't need to work you know 50 60 80 hours a week and you do you are putting pressure on them to do that right so and when i say when i speak to managers and leaders right now i say

you even if you think you're not pressuring your employees if you do that if you do that bad thing they will think they have to and that is bad so you need to be good about setting limits and being an example because that only comes from the top full stop and i i have to cr as a you know the executive director of take this i have to check myself too in that i have to stop i have to articulate that i am leaving my desk that i am walking away that i am disconnecting so that i know that my employees and so that my employees know that they can right um but in in um the the other the other thing is to really cultivate in yourself a lot of other passions and other um other ways to enjoy yourself right make sure even if it is um even if it is

still related to games as long as it is explicitly not your work but it's something slightly different that's great giving yourself explicit ways to leave and shut off will give you um the energy and space to reboot to re-energize and take care of yourself right that's really important um the uh i think i answered the question yeah i think those are the things that's weird yeah and i uh you know something we've been talking around this whole conversation is is uh those kind of challenges something before we have about five minutes left so if anyone wants to get your questions please get them in quick uh there's a good one here about 10 minutes ago from thomas but it's still a good one now and i want to get to it thomas asks how do we as an industry create real change in scheduling deadlines launch dates etc while keeping things like mental health burnout and so on in mind without fear of being replaced by the

newer younger generation who haven't hit these walls yet is that a thing you you regularly deal with in your own work is sort of um the aging problem this industry has where older workers seem to have a hard time getting employed when younger folks don't yeah it is um uh although there's some evidence that that the population of the game industry population is actually aging a little bit which indicates that there's there's maybe a shift around that now um there is a lot of burnout which definitely chases people out of the industry pretty quickly on average around 10 years in which we are concerned about but um i would say the the answer to this is that there are good models out there for more transparent and more participatory scheduling and planning processes that help to kind of mitigate these issues we're working on some tools and and resources and partnership with the igda that hopefully we'll be able to talk

about soon around this stuff um it's a it's about training you know the industry is kind it's an interesting place it's it's not actually that old of an industry and so it's kind of still catching up to itself in terms of professionalization and skill building around management planning forecasting etc and so it's time for the industry really to mature around that stuff and and i hope to be part of the the positive push towards that in the industry yeah i hope so i mean i hope you're a part of it for a long time to come eve thank you so much for joining us today it is my distinct pleasure i'm very happy to be here um and i i really encourage people to reach out to take this or to me directly um you know we're at we do better when we are part of a large community and we work together so would you recommend for people who want to learn more get in touch go to the website or somewhere else rather than touch yep take this.org you can also find us on twitter at take this org and i met eve kravishay nice and uh there was an event coming up

right that i remember that right are you guys working on that for this year is this far yeah we have an event coming up the 7th and 8th of october the international game summit on mental health um yep that's that's when we partner on uh and we've got a lot of other stuff in the works uh over the next few months uh i'm just really looking forward to it so keep an eye on us yeah no absolutely we will thank you guys so much and uh enjoy the rest of your gdc summer [Music] [Applause]