One of the reasons why Naruto is such an amazing show is that it follows the journey of the protagonist on his road to live his life on his own terms. We love anime about the underdog. It really helps us to connect with the character because we have all faced some sort of struggle in our life and because it give us a glimmer of hope. If the character can do it then maybe so can we. 

One of the reasons for our struggle can be because we are not living according to our values. Family expectations and/societal expectations can lead us to believe that other things are more important than our values. 

Care values are the principles that give our life meaning. They are important because if we don't lve accourding to uor values then we expereince harships. Our values can hlep us make sense of the world around, understand how we interact with it and can hlep us make difficult decisions. 

I created a printout that guides you through figuiring out what your values are. You can find the printout (here) for free.

Is Itachi Uchiha a villain or a victim? I was inspired by the work that @victimsandvillains is doing when it comes to the way we often think about villains and victims.

I decided to make a video about Itachi Uchiha (a character from the anime Naruto, for those who haven’t seen it). His story is one of tragedy after tragedy and while he was presented as a villain at the beginning of the story we (the audience) eventually realize that he is actually a victim who sacrificed everything for peace and his village.

Sometimes we see a character (or even people in real life) doing something we don’t approve of and our immediate thought is oh they are evil and therefore they do evil things. Sometimes the villain in the story is also someone who is a victim.

So anyways… I hope this gives you a bit of an idea of how anime can be used in the therapy session and a brief glimpse of what geek therapy is all about.

Check out the video on my brand new YouTube channel Psychology for Geeks and let me know what you think!