REThink

REThink is taking care of the emotional health of each child and coaches her/his emotional skills while having fun. It builds the essential emotional skills for being happy and successful in life. REThink is a therapeutic game that uses psychological science to help children find their superhero emotional strengths!

The game is based on the Retman character, which is belonging to tested packages of cognitive-behavioral therapy for promoting child and adolescent mental health (i.e., Rational Emotive Behavioral Education, REBT, Ellis, 1956; rational stories and therapeutic cartoons). The game has seven levels that take place in different territories on Earth, that are under the power of Irrationalizer and need to be conquered back from the bad mind, and at the end of each level, the player has to win the key to go into the next area. Each level has a trial part at the beginning, in which Retman is explaining player’s mission, and has various degrees of complexity, which increase as the player progresses. The scenario of the game and the seven levels structure focuses on seven objectives: Level 1: identifying the emotional reactions, and differentiating between basic emotions, complex emotions, and functional and dysfunctional emotions; Level 2: building relaxation and mindfulness skills; Level 3: identifying the relation between cognitive processes, emotions, and behavioral reactions; Level 4: changing irrational cognitions into rational cognitions; Level 5: building problem-solving skills; Level 6: building happiness and control attention skills; Level 7: consolidation of the previous skills and building happiness skills.

The REThink online game was tested in a rigorous clinical trial (Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03308981), based on a research project, and it was found to bring significant improvements regarding emotional symptoms, depressive mood, and emotion-regulation abilities (e.g., emotional awareness and emotional control) of the children and adolescents aged 10-16. Moreover, mechanisms of change were documented for improvements in the emotional symptoms, as changes in the irrational cognitions of the children. REThink therapeutic game unique due to its prevention focus of emotional disorders in youth and evidence-based approach, being designed to reach a large number of youths especially outside of the clinical context, which is in line with recent WHO and UNICEF recommendations.