Be Careful Who You Pretend to Be

Viola disguises herself as a man, takes a job working for this guy with whom she promptly falls in love. He believes the pretense: He thinks Viola is a man, so he never gives her a second look. This is the problem with pretending: If you're successful, and people actually believe you, you can get stuck in an identity you don't want. The other problem is this: Some people actually come to believe they are the person they're pretending to be. (4 minutes)

There's the pretending we do as individuals, and there's the organized pretending that happens in group therapy sessions, in the roleplaying games that are done in some clinical settings. Jack Hitt tells the story of the Mother of All Roleplaying Games. It was in the 1970s and he was there. (11 minutes)