Home / Board Game Therapy™ / What it is

What Board Game Therapy™ is, and is not

Board Game Therapy™ is a developing, practice-derived facilitation framework that uses deliberately selected tabletop mechanics, embedded facilitation, and structured debriefing to create opportunities for connection and skill development. Playing a board game does not automatically make an activity therapy.

Is

  • Structured facilitation
  • Mechanic selection tied to a goal
  • A method for observing interaction in context
  • Embedded facilitation from inside the game
  • Reflective debrief that starts with the board
  • Different scopes for Host, Coach, and Therapist
  • A developing, practice-derived framework
  • Deliberate target selection, readiness assessment, construction of conditions, and proportionate processing

Is not

  • Proof that how someone plays reveals a diagnosis
  • “Play a game and call it therapy”
  • A reason to engineer conflict or humiliation
  • A substitute for licensure or clinical judgment
  • A claim that every board game is therapeutic
  • A mature evidence-based branded treatment protocol at this stage
  • A live certification or training platform (listed only when real)

How we talk about it

Preferred public claim: BGT creates structured opportunities to practice and observe interpersonal behaviors through shared play.

Board Game Therapy is not inherently psychotherapy. Its use depends on the facilitator, scope, setting, and purpose. Licensed clinicians may integrate structured play into an existing treatment relationship; Host and Coach applications remain nonclinical.

Never convert an ordinary community or coaching activity into “therapy” through marketing language. Playing a board game does not automatically make an activity therapy.

TABLE Method

TABLE guides the facilitator through planning, leading, and extending the experience. It is the facilitator sequence for Board Game Therapy™.

See the TABLE Method

One method, three scopes

Host (Leaders & Facilitators), Coach, and Therapist share one method with different bounds across three application scopes.

Evidence posture

Adjacent research on connection, play, and group process may inform the work. BGT-specific outcomes require formal evaluation. Early pilots, when they exist, are program development, not proof of efficacy. We have not published a completed public cohort on this site.

Explore scopes TABLE Method How It Works Book waitlist