Gorgc has a Therapy Session on Twitch

^{Image Courtesy: WESG}

Earlier yesterday, popular streamer, Janne "Gorgc" Stefanovski decided to undergo therapy on livestream, broadcasting the session to thousands of viewers.

Gorgc stated that he was inspired by the latest Reckful stream (where he talked to a therapist about his depression and got emotional) and “felt necessary to share”.

The main focus of the session was Gorgc's feelings of inadequacy and anger which evolved into a fear of failing. Gorgc ended up talking about his childhood and his upbringing, to get to the root of the problem.

Reddit user /u/ISupposeIamRight gave us a comprehensive summary of the 3-hour long session.

You can watch the full session HERE.

Later on, the Doctor who spoke to Gorgc also commented on the thread, giving his own summary of the session and expanded on it. He states:

Dr. K here,

For people who want a summary:

The first thing to understand is that most of the mental patterns that cause us suffering are adaptive in some way. I see this very commonly with the very successful people I work with (Esports and RL). His sense of inadequacy is what drives him to work hard. Since he fundamentally doesn't believe he has value, he strives to demonstrate value through achievement. And even though this causes him suffering, it leads to real world success (A's in high school, being very good at DotA). Since his success is based on his sense of inadequacy, there's a part of him that doesn't want to give it up. If you have a negative core belief, you have to understand what it is doing for you in order to overcome it. You gotta understand what you're giving up by "getting better."

The second thing is that the core beliefs we have about ourselves are not something we are born with, but that we learn at some point. I suspect that Gorgc started to feel like he was a POS when his father passed away (watch the interview for details). Understanding how these beliefs formed is crucial to changing them.

Lastly, that Gorgc talks about needing to "Break the Cycle" and this is his goal. But I'd say that you can't really "break the cycle." "Breaking the cycle" is like saying you need to "just win your lane" in DotA. Sure, it is a great goal, but setting "winning your lane" as a goal doesn't actually move you towards it. You have to understand why you're losing the lane. Diagnose the problem with more specificity. Is it because you can't last hit? You're not using creep aggro? Not pulling? Getting outpicked? In the same way that "winning your lane" is a general goal that requires a deeper understanding to accomplish, most of our mental health problems require a closer look to understand what needs to change. As you implement small changes, you'll eventually "win your lane." If you want to improve your life, you've got to start implementing small changes - maybe eating berries every day, or doing yoga for 10 minutes. Each of these is worth 25 points of RL MMR. And as you slowly implement small changes, your life gets better (I guess you go up a medal rank?).

For people who want the meat of the interview, I'd start around 4 mins and go until about 60 mins.

Apologies if posting here is inappropriate. Thanks to Gorgc for being courageous, and everyone else for watching. Open to criticisms but would prefer to avoid the reddit equivalent of tips and chatwheeling.

Popular community figures like Gorgc and Reckful showcasing depression and other mental illnesses normalizes these emotions for viewers and helps remove the stigma associated with mental illness. More acts like this might open discourse and understanding in the long run and eventually make the gaming world a better place.