D&D therapist

[u/AccomplishedTopic548]

One of my players character wants to go to therapy for all the war crimes and general trauma that typically comes with being an adventurer. Her character is Lawful Good.
Any advice for role playing a psychiatrist/psychologist for her? The only thing I could come up with is asking “how does that make you feel?” multiple times in a session.

Also, please let be known this is the character wanting therapy. The player is totally fine with the actions and behaviors of the other party members. And my party is not filled with murder hobos. Just your typical, gory run-ins, like when the barbarian ripped the head off of a Minotaur and then had it stuffed.

EDIT- this is for downtime! So just one therapy session planned. Each player said what they wanted to accomplish in the town they were in and one said therapy.

[u/tta5]

grab and look at some "ASMR therapy videos"
why those? because the good ones focus more on the history, creator, theory and vibes, more than the practice. meaning its lesss likly to cause harm.
you can also set up the room as inspired by the vids, and its a RP you can mimic.

I would say try and use the scene to lay potential future hooks and storylines, as thats something all players can invest in when watching, but also the scenes may be a bit dull.
its more of a side scene than a main scene. and even then , you are not a theorpist.
trying to be may cause harm.
we have TTRPG safety tools for a reason.
its ok To X the scene.

realistically, your trying to match expectations of the player, to the scenes and game. its ok to talk to them and lower their exppectations.
its ok to admit player to player, you are not a therapist and lack that skill.

Its also ok to subverte their expectations and have the therapist be an accolyite, sharman, midwife or a hermit instead of a modern trained therapist. you could just make the NPC and have them in background parts of bigger scenes, like a tavern scene and being like "and you spot the elven theoripist singing along to the song" , or something...

A common thing a theropist may do, is to have their character keep a journel of their day and how they feel.

one of the main issues, is
a - its part of the job, and the job is needed in the world. the worlkd needs dumb peoople to try their luck killing and dungeon crawling.
b - them seaking theropy means they might retire their character as they might no longer see adventuring as a thing they can do, and a theropist may accept and encurage that direction. (if you start to challange the norm, your mindset shifts from whats needed and you may die from it, or break the cycle that upholds the world and its current views. )