webstieTestRepl.github.io/hellbladePsychosis.html at main · Najorae/webstieTestRepl.github.io · GitHub

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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Psychosis Hellblade</title>
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  <body>
    <header>
      <div class="container">
        <img
          width="145"
          src="assets/NJ.gif"
          alt="A reocurring gif of my initials, NTK, with a red heard above and a black and blue audio wave below in a grey white-outlined circle. The circle slowly appears in a blue backgrounded square along with purple and pink hearts in each corner."
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        <h3 class="textCenter" style="padding-left: 6%; text-shadow: 1px 1px white; font-size: 1.2em;">HELLBLADE</h3>
      </div>
    </header>

    <nav>
      <ul>
        <li>
          <a href="Video Games.html"> <-- Video Games</a>
        </li>
        <li>
          <a href="hellbladeIntro.html">Intro</a>
        </li>
        <li>
          <a href="hellbladeStory.html">Story</a>
        </li>
        <li>
          <a href="hellbladePsychosis.html">Psychosis</a>
        </li>
        <li>
          <a href="hellbladeCombat.html">Combat</a>
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          <a href="hellbladeVisuals.html">Visuals</a>
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          <a href="hellbladeMusic.html">Music</a>
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          <a href="hellbladeFinal.html">Rating</a>
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    <main>
      <h1 class="textCenter" style="font-size: 25px; padding: 5px;">Portrayl of Psychosis</h1>

      <p>
        In Hellblade, Senua experiences psychosis. Psychosis is a term used to describe conditions that affect the mind, where people lose contact with reality. The two main symptoms are hallucinations which can be of all senses, and delusions which pertain more to beliefs. Psychosis itself is not a mental condition but rather can be a result of mental health conditions such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. It can also be a result of drug or alcohol misuse, a traumatic experience, or a physical condition. For help on the portrayal of psychosis in Senua’s character, Ninja Theory reached out to Professor Paul Fletcher to consult on the project and provide a scientific perspective to the game. Fletcher is a professor of health and neuroscience at Cambridge University and he has also trained in medicine and psychiatry. He was at first cautious of working on the game, as video games haven’t always portrayed mental illness with accuracy or respect. It is important to point out this issue that videogames along with other media have long been representing mental illness in a harmful and inaccurate light. Positive portrayal of mental illness is very important as negative portrayal discourages the public from seeking further understanding, teaches people to fear mental illness, and reinforces negative ideas about people with mental health conditions. Fletcher says that Ninja Theory, on the other hand, was developing a portrayal that was honest, accurate, respectful, powerful, yet original. Ninja Theory’s principles with the portrayal, Fletcher explains, were that they wanted to be accurate yet not generalize, be sensitive but not soft, make Senua a hero rather than a victim, and most importantly portray and develop Senua as a person first rather than defining her by her mental illness. Fletcher says it has been gratifying to work with the team at Ninja Theory due to their dedication to providing a representation and reflection of psychosis that encompasses all of these principles.
        </p>

        <p>
          Along with professor Fletcher, Ninja Theory teamed up with a foundation dedicated to research and understanding mental health called Wellcome Trust, who gave Ninja Theory a grant. A worker at Wellcome Trust also expressed how mental health hasn’t always been helpfully presented in the media, and how Ninja Theory with Wellcome Trust wanted to help change this and provide their audience with a portrayal that was built on good research and real perspectives. To do so, Ninja Theory’s team met with a group of people who experienced psychosis through the CPFT, the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, to talk about their experiences and how psychosis should best be portrayed. This group gave several of their experiences, which were highlighted in the game. Some things they said were “everything is in bits. Like a photograph that's torn and put together again,” “sometimes the world appears like a kaleidoscope and it can be beautiful,” and “the mind goes blank and everything gets switched off.” Ninja Theory then worked these visual representations of psychosis into Hellblade and kept meeting with the group and Fletcher to make adjustments to the visuals for better accuracy/representaion. The developers at Ninja Theory also included themes in the story such as stigmatization and how people made Senua feel ostracised, in response to what the group and specialists said.
        </p>

      <div class="flex-container">
        <div class="flex-item">
          <img style="width: 90%;" class="imgCenter" src="assets/Hellblade kalide.jpeg" alt="Senua stands distand in a radiant field of flowers, weeds, grass, and other plants." />
        </div>
        <div class="flex-item">
          <img style="width: 90%;" class="imgCenter" src="assets/Hellblade Senua alive and dead.jpeg" alt="An alive Senua sitting right and over her dead body on the pavement in a dark setting." />
        </div>
      </div>

        <p>
          After three long years of collecting information and implementing them into the game, Hellblade:Senua’s Sacrifice was finished. Before launch, they made sure to have a playthrough with the CPFT group to get their feedback again before the final result. The group said they felt validated from seeing the way their lived experience was portrayed in the game, which was a common review people with mental health conditions gave Hellblade. Some powerful reviews were, “since I was a baby, I have suffered violent abuse. I felt like I didn’t belong in this world. I heard voices, saw numbers and letters in the world. I was harassed by my reflection in the mirror. So strange to see this all in a video game. Your game made me cry because it showed it was possible to understand me,” along with “I’ve never known how to describe what happens in my mind. You have put words and pictures to how I feel. I showed it to those I’ve been unable to be honest with, and connected with the people I love on a level I’ve never been able to before.” However, others with psychosis have said that it is very difficult to get through as it was traumatic or triggering to play through. Some of these same people, though, have said it is a good representation, comforting, and gets rid of stigma, yet it was too full-on in it's depictions to be playable.
        </p>

        <p>
          I am overall pleased to have discovered how much research and effort they put into making a positive impact and accurate, respectful portrayal of psychosis in Hellblade. At first, when I began playing and was informed of the game’s depiction of psychosis, I was worried that the team hadn’t consulted with people who experienced psychosis or that they hadn’t done enough research due to the ongoing negative portrayal of mental illness in the media. After looking into the game and seeing people’s responses, I believe this game has positively impacted at least some people with similar experiences as Senua. Feeling understood or heard is one of the most touching, healing things someone can feel, and I am really glad that it reached people in this way. However, I think their biggest issue was making a game portraying psychosis not even accessible to many players with psychosis. There was also an envissioned fantasy aspect in the game, yet this made it confusing if everything the player experienced was a result of psychosis or not, thus making it difficult to dilineate what was supposed to be part of the portrayl, yet maybe it all was and this was part of the point. In another review they revealed the issue that in the context of having her village been killed and no people around her, she is displaced from a society in which she has to interract with people and experience barriers in a day to day modern setting. While this wasn't the context of the game of course, it upholds the idea that it is all in her head as she says, when in reality living among other people is "a colossal part of what makes living with mental illness a struggle," <a href="https://www.polygon.com/2017/9/15/16316014/hellblade-senuas-sacrifice-mental-illness">(What Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice gets wrong about mental illness.)</a> I think the portrayl might be one of the better ones out there, so hopefully it just paves the way for better, more accessible ones where the character is shown in a vast array of settings, yet at times it was hard to tell if it was really an educational experience or playing someone's experience unknown to me almost out of the entertainment/intrigue/beauty/puzzle solving that is interwoven in the game. In contradiction, that is not to say that every game with a depiction of mental illness needs to soley be about an education aspect and they should be normalized as main characters with similar game experiences as others. It overall felt like they were making a game more for people who don't experience psychosis to understand and see a more accurate, researched portrayl yet if a lot of people with psychosis can't play, it slightly diminishes the game in my eyes because who should this really be for? They had a small team with a lack of time and resources however, and they did something that positively impacted many which is what really matters.
        </p>

      <h3 style="padding-top: 10px;">CITATIONS & RESOURCES:</h3>
      <p>Mead, Fran. “Ninja Theory Official Site.” Ninja Theory Ltd, <a href="https://ninjatheory.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">ninjatheory.com.</a></p>

      <p>
        “Hellblade Development Diaries.” Edited by Melina Juergens, Youtube Playlist, Ninja Theory, 2017,
        <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbpkF8TRYizaT6GfMcKBG-RoUOQ6BJRXp" target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbpkF8TRYizaT6GfMcKBG.</a>
      </p>

      <p>
        “Professor Paul Fletcher (Hellblade Clinical Consultant) Keynote Address.” Performance by Paul Fletcher, Youtube.com, The International Games Summit, Oct. 2019,
        <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpRMwq4T9gU." target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpRMwq4T9gU.</a>
      </p>

      <p>
        “Hellblade: Senua's Psychosis | Mental Health Feature.” Youtube.com, Ninja Theory, Oct. 2018,
        <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31PbCTS4Sq4." target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">www.youtube.com/watch?v=31PbCTS4Sq4.</a>
      </p>

      <p>“Psychosis.” NHS Choices, NHS, Dec. 2019, <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/psychosis/." target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">www.nhs.uk/conditions/psychosis/.</a></p>

      <p>Community Written. “Northmen.” Hellblade Wiki, <a href="https://thehellblade.fandom.com/wiki/Northmen" target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">thehellblade.fandom.com/wiki/Northmen</a></p>

      <p>“Hellblade Official Site.” Hellblade, Ninja Theory, <a href="https://hellblade.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">https://hellblade.com/</a></p>

      <p>Hellblade Soundtrack (headphones recommended for 3D sound): <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jZKRPcWLms." target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jZKRPcWLms.</a></p>

      <p>Hellblade Gallery: <a href="https://hellblade.com/gallery" target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">https://www.hellblade.com/pictures/.</a></p>

      <p>Buy the game! <a href="https://hellblade.com/buy" target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">https://www.hellblade.com/buy.</a></p>
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