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On April 06 2012 11:36 ProjectiveID wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2011 08:21 partysnatcher wrote:On December 22 2011 05:30 Frumsan wrote:On December 22 2011 05:10 partysnatcher wrote:On December 22 2011 04:14 Frumsan wrote:Great write-up!  There are many aspects of the cognitive-behavioral theory I don't accede to though, so my question as a non-psychologist but with a lot of experience and education in the area is: How would the views you've just described (very eloquently) differ from a psycho-dynamic point of view? Thanks! CBT can, in a way, be considered psychodynamic, but I assume you mean the original philosophies like Freuds psychoanalysis. A psychoanalytic point of view would see your anxiety as a representation of inner conflicts based in childhood. It would send you into months and months of talk therapy until all your overt and covert conflicts had been resolved and you had become a more relaxed person. However, a psychodynamic direction like Kohut's Self-psychology would focus very strongly on your narcissistic ego and ambitions. The "split" in personality many feel after a loss (where you become a different person for half an hour), would be considered a symptom of Self damage. Therapy would try to make your Self as whole as possible - and mutate your narcissistic drive to a healthy, productive narcissism (not to be confused with Narcissistic Personality Disorder). But in general, cognitive-behavioral therapy is pretty much the most acknowledged method in psychology right now - it is highly acknowledged even outside of psychology - most strikingly when applied to the psychosomatic field; where it is far more effective than medicine. It is considered the most effective way to fix, for instance, sleep disturbances or irritable bowel syndrome. TL;DR: CBT is pretty good!  Thanks for you response. While I agree that CBT can in some aspects be viewed as similar to the Psychodymanic Theory I don't think that they can generally be viewed as conveying the same message in a lot of arguments. Regarding the cognitive-behavioral therapy being the most acknowledged method right now in psychology I strongly oppose this statement; I feel like the psychodynamic paradigm (if you want to call it that) is still at least as viable as the CBT-paradigm. In particular object to the statement that it's more effective in medicine in the psychosomatic field; especially since CBT isn't used without medicine and psychodynamics isn't used only with medicine. I think the psychodynamic approach is underrated in modern psychology too. I've studied Kohutian Self-psychology on my own sparetime, due to a personal interest in psychodynamics. One "problem" with most psychodynamic approaches to, say, ladder anxiety, is that it usually requires an experienced and skilled therapist, and lots of dialogue. CBT is mostly done by the patient itself, and is well suited to at-home exercises. The efficiency of CBT is measured in terms of successful outcomes per patient, and has done well here - also without medicine. This kind of success rate has proven more difficult to measure for psychodynamic approaches. I'll weigh in as a psychoanalytically trained clinical psychologist. While there are many streams of analytic thought and each of those streams of thought could go in different directions, I think a theme throughout them could be to bring attention to the cause of the anxiety. The OP started to address this, but congruent with a CBT model there is not much attention at expanding why playing a video game could create so much anxiety that people stop playing it. The answer to "why" can be (and is) different for everyone, but I bet a significant portion of it is related to one's sense of control or mastery in the world. Anxiety in general can often be explained as the attempt to defend one's self from a perceived uncontrollable threat. This threat could be everything from a very abusive parent (a very real threat) to feeling that you picked the "wrong" item to eat for lunch (a very minor threat) to feeling that stepping outside will lead to getting abducted by aliens (a very unlikely threat). The hope would be that one could be firm enough in them selves (maintain ego strength) to experience a threat, feel the impact of it - both positive and negative, and be able to respond appropriately. If the threat is that your stove is on fire the appropriate response would be to attempt to put the fire out (or run outside if the fire was too big), if the threat is losing points in ladder an appropriate response would be experience the disappointment as a reflection of your skill at a video game not as a reflection of your identity (now, if you are a pro attempting to make a living off SC, then there is a whole different threat). If one's sense of control in the world is obtained through SC there will always be a high degree of anxiety because that control is always threatened. As sort of a silly thought experiment, I think if someone came to me as a patient with "ladder anxiety" (maybe a new diagnosis in DSM V?), my thoughts would be to explore why the patient felt so threatened by losing. My guess would be that the patient lacks other ego building activities - such as hobbies, close relationships, places for a safe expression of emotion; likely due to a lack of these things being available to them as a child.
Nice post. That last line is pretty strong. I kind of had ladder anxiety but I felt like it was to do more with online relationships with my gamer friends. Now I don't have this feeling at all I'm very confident in playing and sharing loses with my friends. My personal solution was to suck it up and realize that I'm actually enjoying myself when I play. And also you won't improve without playing.
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Great Read op!! :D
So much of this applies to me, the weeks/months between playing games, then using a whole day to prepare for just 1 match.
The huge adrenaline rush as I go into the first game with my heart going crazy, I've also noticed how the fear is lessened for me after the first match.
I shall definitely be taking up some of this advice and I'll consider getting a smurf account and just playing for casual fun.
I've bookmarked this article for future reference :D
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"to be stressed out, play once a week, static and repetitive in Diamond?"
oh snap, this sounds just like me lol
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really well written, great read
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I've read it all and I really like what I saw. thanks
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On April 06 2012 09:21 ocGMentalOne wrote:
THIS DOESN'T HELP IF I LOSE 1 MORE GAME I MIGHT GET DEMOTED TO DIAMOND YOU KNOW HOW STRESSED I AM FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
This is because the Ladder is thinning out. All the people who were filling up Bronze and Silver just don't play anymore.
If everyone below masters quit, you'd have masters players in Bronze. It's not quite that bad, but it's kind of like that.
Diamond is WAY harder than it used to be and Platinum has stuff it never used to, like Protosses that know how to block your nat and macro behind it and Terrans that properly 2 reactor hellion. It's actually cool, except for the fact that it means that less people are laddering 
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I 100% recommend people get a "smurf" account if they're suffering from social pressures not playing the game. (i.e. the everyone I know is masters so I don't want to play cause I'm only plat) It's a little too bad Blizz decided to make a smurf account $60.
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On April 07 2012 05:35 CursOr wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2012 09:21 ocGMentalOne wrote:
THIS DOESN'T HELP IF I LOSE 1 MORE GAME I MIGHT GET DEMOTED TO DIAMOND YOU KNOW HOW STRESSED I AM FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU This is because the Ladder is thinning out. All the people who were filling up Bronze and Silver just don't play anymore. If everyone below masters quit, you'd have masters players in Bronze. It's not quite that bad, but it's kind of like that. Diamond is WAY harder than it used to be and Platinum has stuff it never used to, like Protosses that know how to block your nat and macro behind it and Terrans that properly 2 reactor hellion. It's actually cool, except for the fact that it means that less people are laddering
Lololol :D Diamond is way harder ? It's so easy especially that one of my zerg buddies was shifting back and forward from plat to gold league and now he learned to do some stupid earlier 4 gate build and apparently he is beating diamonds with it like 90% win ratio ( I scout and hold it with 0 problem). When I play NA diamonds its so easy. You can say that only about KR server which I play and I can vouch that the plat league is more difficult that NA diamond.
As for the topic, the best advice is just to start playing rather than waste your time analyzing where it came from. I've read many of those guides back when I had ladder anxiety and it is all bs explanation of something that can only be countered by clicking search button. Or the other solution is to get KR account like me and play there so you get owned so badly that you have to completely revamp your playstyle down to details.
Is it successful ? Well KR server helped me focus on details as well as in less than a week eliminated my desire to rage at lost games because unlike in NA I don't lose to stupid stuff but get outplayed which helps to cope with loses. While I never GG, I appreciate the player that defeated me because they knew how to play.
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great write up, really interesting stuff. I can relate to so much of it.
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Well done buddy ! This is a great article. I recognize myself a lot while reading :D
Thank you
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Even so i play a lot of ladder this was a very interesting read. I Hope to read more analyses from you!
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This seems extremely interesting, and I recognized myself in every point you said (I don't analyze replays, I don't want to ladder, etc).
Great write up.
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People generally say that they get frustrated when they lose and stop playing. It makes the complete effect on me when I'm on a lose streak I want to play more and more because i know losing is part of learning and when I'm on a win streak it is harder to play for me since I don't want to ruin the streak. I think to beat ladder anxiety you just should learn stop caring about ladder since it is meaningless. You can even like enter a game and just surrender to remind yourself that points you get in ladder have no meaning. I'm a high master zerg and when I'm bored i just enter with random and lose 10 games with four gates and 2 raxes because since I'm not a progamer why should i care? that should be the mindset i think don't be hard on yourselves people ;p
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On April 07 2012 05:49 Lokerek wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2012 05:35 CursOr wrote:On April 06 2012 09:21 ocGMentalOne wrote:
THIS DOESN'T HELP IF I LOSE 1 MORE GAME I MIGHT GET DEMOTED TO DIAMOND YOU KNOW HOW STRESSED I AM FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU This is because the Ladder is thinning out. All the people who were filling up Bronze and Silver just don't play anymore. If everyone below masters quit, you'd have masters players in Bronze. It's not quite that bad, but it's kind of like that. Diamond is WAY harder than it used to be and Platinum has stuff it never used to, like Protosses that know how to block your nat and macro behind it and Terrans that properly 2 reactor hellion. It's actually cool, except for the fact that it means that less people are laddering Lololol :D Diamond is way harder ? It's so easy especially that one of my zerg buddies was shifting back and forward from plat to gold league and now he learned to do some stupid earlier 4 gate build and apparently he is beating diamonds with it like 90% win ratio ( I scout and hold it with 0 problem). When I play NA diamonds its so easy. You can say that only about KR server which I play and I can vouch that the plat league is more difficult that NA diamond. As for the topic, the best advice is just to start playing rather than waste your time analyzing where it came from. I've read many of those guides back when I had ladder anxiety and it is all bs explanation of something that can only be countered by clicking search button. Or the other solution is to get KR account like me and play there so you get owned so badly that you have to completely revamp your playstyle down to details. Is it successful ? Well KR server helped me focus on details as well as in less than a week eliminated my desire to rage at lost games because unlike in NA I don't lose to stupid stuff but get outplayed which helps to cope with loses. While I never GG, I appreciate the player that defeated me because they knew how to play.
Nomination for worst post ever?
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On April 08 2012 14:01 danojb wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2012 05:49 Lokerek wrote:On April 07 2012 05:35 CursOr wrote:On April 06 2012 09:21 ocGMentalOne wrote:
THIS DOESN'T HELP IF I LOSE 1 MORE GAME I MIGHT GET DEMOTED TO DIAMOND YOU KNOW HOW STRESSED I AM FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU This is because the Ladder is thinning out. All the people who were filling up Bronze and Silver just don't play anymore. If everyone below masters quit, you'd have masters players in Bronze. It's not quite that bad, but it's kind of like that. Diamond is WAY harder than it used to be and Platinum has stuff it never used to, like Protosses that know how to block your nat and macro behind it and Terrans that properly 2 reactor hellion. It's actually cool, except for the fact that it means that less people are laddering Lololol :D Diamond is way harder ? It's so easy especially that one of my zerg buddies was shifting back and forward from plat to gold league and now he learned to do some stupid earlier 4 gate build and apparently he is beating diamonds with it like 90% win ratio ( I scout and hold it with 0 problem). When I play NA diamonds its so easy. You can say that only about KR server which I play and I can vouch that the plat league is more difficult that NA diamond. As for the topic, the best advice is just to start playing rather than waste your time analyzing where it came from. I've read many of those guides back when I had ladder anxiety and it is all bs explanation of something that can only be countered by clicking search button. Or the other solution is to get KR account like me and play there so you get owned so badly that you have to completely revamp your playstyle down to details. Is it successful ? Well KR server helped me focus on details as well as in less than a week eliminated my desire to rage at lost games because unlike in NA I don't lose to stupid stuff but get outplayed which helps to cope with loses. While I never GG, I appreciate the player that defeated me because they knew how to play. Nomination for worst post ever?
Yep, your post should be nominated for the worst post for it brings nothing to the thread.
Anxiety will never go away unless you start playing and that's it. You can write a whole page psychological summary but it won't help you unless you click "start game" and start playing. Even if you don't read it and start playing eventually you will lose anxiety. The whole point of the post is to show that no matter what you read you might "lower" anxiety but you cannot overcome it unless you start playing and stop worrying about your rank (thats at least 95% of the people who have ladder anxiety - they simply overestimate their skill and think they deserve to be ranked better)
Case in point - EGIdrA - he knows his skill level so when he plays protoss who 3 pylons blocks him, he immediately quits without panicking about losing a ladder game because he knows what his true skill level is.
Anxiety exist only in the lower leagues and the sad truth is that this game is competitive so unless you stop whining about how you should be at a certain league and start working to get there the anxiety will remain.
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while this is a good read...i feel like you shouldn't have axiety to play ladder games...its a game... relax have fun. But good guide :D
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EDIT: i suck at using teamliquid forum
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On April 06 2012 12:52 ETisME wrote:
"to be stressed out, play once a week, static and repetitive in Diamond?"
oh snap, this sounds just like me lol
This. Is. Exactly. Me :D
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EPT
