Chess is known for its cognitive properties and as a booster for improving memory, strategic thinking and span of attention. It isn’t a surprise that the ancient game has been used in behavioural therapy for decades. The neurological and psychological impact of chess on human minds has been a topic of intense research and has led to innovative breakthroughs in cognitive skill development, artificial intelligence and behaviour modulation.
What if the deep psychological impact of this brain game on human minds can reverse patterns and erase addictive behaviours? In the region of Extremadura, Spain, there are de-addiction centres where one of the activities for the recovering programs is chess.
Chess Therapy for Treating Addictions
The centres are committed to the treatment and care of substance addictions (drugs, alcohol) as well as other addictive behaviours (like gambling). Such centres or Therapeutic Communities (TC), as they are called, are comprehensive in nature, treating the problems with diverse activities leading to a complete and holistic cure.
The concept of therapeutic communities for handling addictions first took form in the United States in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. The concept promotes fellowship, peer support and engaging activities to nurture a healthy and hopeful environment or community living.
In Extremadura, some of the urban TCs have implemented Cognitive Training through chess that is supported by the Technical Secretariat of Drug Addictions, the highest official body in the region that fights against addictions.
The Cognitive Training programs named aptly as “Cognitive Rehabilitation in Black and White” use chess to recover the cognitive functions like memory, attention span etc., that have been impaired by drug abuse. Four hours per week are dedicated to mending the destructive influence of prolonged years of substance abuse or other addictions.
Cognitive Training Program for Rehabilitation
Over the past decade, as many as three hundred people have taken part in the community program with stays stretching as per individual needs with an average duration of 6 months. For the Cognitive Training Program, every week has two sessions of one and a half hours each with stringent guidelines. The results and the success of the program are great accolades for the game.
The exercises are molded to suit the parameters of regular rehabilitation programs. The sessions focus on attention-building – improving divided attention, focal attention, memory building - short-term and working memory, memorization skills etc., information coordination, perceptual discrimination, execution of cause & effect actions, as well as logical and spatial reasoning, and auditory and visual attention, to name a few.
The training program does not use individual chess boards as in the game but instead, uses an exhibition board as its working resource. Participants are encouraged to depend solely on their brains though at times solving exercises on paper is also permitted.
Each session picks one or two cognitive skills or at times a combination of a few is used in a single exercise. For instance, in “executive functions'', the participants have to solve how many moves are required to bring the pieces back to their original positions on the board.
Or in a “working memory” exercise, there would be four pawns on the board. The participants are given one or two minutes to memorize the position. Then they are asked to reproduce the positions on the board one by one.
How do you analyse your own game?
Any initial success, however small, boosts up the participants and encourages them to try harder exercises. Finally a chess position is given with a larger number of pieces that they have to memorize and reproduce the initial positions.
Likewise, in the “attention” exercise, various pieces are placed in the centre of the board and the participants have to answer questions on counting and discrimination of pieces. For instance, how many pawns are there in a specific position, how many bishops on light squares, how many knights on dark squares and so on.
Such activities based on chess help to trigger, stretch and stimulate the deteriorated brain functioning and also motivate the participants to try more and be confident.
A Flexible Mode of Chess Therapy
The Cognitive Training programs are active all through the year and work more as a complementary therapy that supports and blends in with the other activities developed at the center. The primary objective for the training program is to recover the cognitive capabilities of the participants that were ravaged by years of substance abuse and addictive behaviours.
The program does not follow any syllabus or serve as a certificate program with predefined boundaries. There are no first or final sessions. It is all about the progression. Each week’s plan would depend on the scale of difficulty of the previous sessions, the extent of cognitive “repair” required, or the duration of the participants in the program. The program also permits to start from scratch as required, beginning from the simplest exercises, in any cognitive category throughout the participation.
The basic structure of the program rests on the participants’ knowledge of chess. Even though some of the participants are familiar with the game, traditional chess methodologies are not explored much. The coordinators love to call their work circular, with the freedom to go over areas that require attention and reworking.
The participants move on to different levels according to their success in specific cognitive areas. Many get into the rhythm of the exercises and there have been incidents of real “victories” with some of them recollecting more than 20 pieces and their positions in a single session. Once the participants move on to different levels, the sessions start again with newcomers.
Putting the Pieces Together
The success stories of the communities speak more than words about the effect and influence of chess based cognitive development and training. As the participants move on, many stay back and volunteer in the communities extending support to the new joiners.
The perception of chess as an intelligent game that they cannot access is redefined in this flexible mode of training. And hence, conquering the little steps of the game, memorizing the moves or positions of the pieces serve as a motivation for the participants, building up their confidence and self-esteem. After all, the game of chess is a reflection of our lives where the battle can be won even when all the pieces aren’t intact!