Introduction
When Squid Game first appeared on Netflix, it quickly became a global hit. On the surface it was a shocking survival drama filled with tension, bloodshed and impossible choices. But the reason it connected so deeply with our cultural imagination was that, beneath the spectacle, it was holding up a mirror. The games in the series are an exaggerated metaphor for life as many of us experience it today. The pressure to compete, the weight of debt, the sense of being trapped in a system that feels rigged, and the way our humanity gets tested in the process.
That is what I want to explore here. Not the plot twists or production, but the way Squid Game speaks to the lives we actually live. And then to ask what therapy, particularly Gestalt and Person-Centred therapy, might offer us when we begin to notice that our lives have started to resemble our own private version of the game.
The Metaphor of the Games
The premise of Squid Game is straightforward. Hundreds of people, each burdened by unmanageable debt or despair, are invited to take part in a series of children’s games. Lose, and you are eliminated in the most brutal way possible. Win, and you take home a life-changing sum of money. The games are watched and manipulated by the powerful, who treat the players as disposable entertainment.
The metaphor is clear. Modern life often feels like a relentless competition, where the rules are set by forces outside our control. For many, work becomes a daily survival test. Debt is not only financial but emotional, relational and psychological. We may not be shot for losing, but the fear of redundancy, failure, or not keeping up can feel just as threatening to the nervous system. The series exaggerates the truth to make it visible. The games are life, stripped of politeness and illusion.
Philosophical Questions in Squid Game
One reason the show resonates is that it is asking questions philosophy has wrestled with for centuries.
- Existentialism – What does it mean to live authentically when the world feels absurd or unfair? The players are forced into choices that reveal what they value most when stripped of status and possessions.
- Freedom and responsibility – Although the players are technically free to leave, many return because the life waiting outside is even harsher. Their “freedom” exposes how responsibility for our choices can feel crushing when the system itself is unjust.
- The social contract – By voting to continue the games, the players are in effect re-signing a contract. They agree to rules that are clearly destructive, because the alternative feels worse. This mirrors the compromises we all make in society, often without pausing to question whether the rules themselves are fair.
- Morality – The dilemmas in the show highlight the clash between utilitarian choices (sacrifice one to save many) and deontological commitments (some acts are always wrong). Therapy may not provide answers to these moral problems, but it gives us space to see where we are torn.
Parallels with Modern Life
It can be tempting to see Squid Game as entertainment, extreme and removed from real life. But if we pause, the parallels become uncomfortable.
- Inequality – Just as in the games, modern society rewards a few while leaving many struggling. Those who fall behind often do so through no fault of their own, yet are blamed for not working hard enough.
- Exploitation – Many people feel trapped in jobs where they are little more than numbers, their individuality erased. The players wearing numbered tracksuits are a chilling reflection of the workplace or bureaucracy.
- Debt and survival – Financial debt is real, but so is emotional debt. The sense of owing, of never doing enough, of being permanently on the back foot. Many people come to therapy weighed down by this invisible burden.
- Performance pressure – In the series, every game is a test of performance. In life, our worth is often measured the same way: productivity, achievements, appearances. The anxiety of constantly being judged can be overwhelming.
- Disconnection – The games pit players against each other. Trust is fragile. In modern life, many experience the same isolation, feeling it is safer to compete than to connect.
What Therapy Offers
This is where therapy becomes relevant. Gestalt and Person-Centred approaches are not about teaching people how to win at the game. They do not hand out strategies for beating the system. Instead, therapy invites awareness.
Awareness of the rules we are living by. Awareness of whether those rules are inherited from family, culture or workplace. Awareness of the choices we are making, consciously or unconsciously. Awareness of the impact this has on our relationships and sense of self.
In Gestalt we might ask, how am I interrupting my own contact with others? Where am I withdrawing, deflecting, complying or becoming aggressive in order to survive? In Person-Centred work, the focus might be on creating a safe enough relationship where you can bring the whole of yourself without judgement, and begin to explore what feels most true for you.
The shift is subtle but profound. Therapy is not about escaping the game entirely. Most of us cannot walk away from society. But it is about realising that you are not only a player. You are also the one who can step back, notice the field, and ask whether to keep following the same rules.
Character Journeys as Illustrations
The characters in Squid Game embody different ways of living within the metaphor.
- Gi-hun – The protagonist begins as a desperate, flawed man. Yet his journey shows the possibility of compassion, loyalty and moral courage even in the harshest environment. He represents the potential for change when we stay in touch with our humanity.
- Sang-woo – The childhood friend who becomes ruthless, sacrificing others to survive. He illustrates how the pressure of the system can strip away empathy, turning survival into betrayal.
- Sae-byeok – The North Korean defector who dreams of reunifying her family. Her story shows how much people carry unseen struggles, and how the game of survival often hides quieter, more painful realities.
- The Front Man – Perhaps the most complex figure. Once a player himself, he now enforces the rules. He represents the danger of complicity: how those who suffer under a system can end up perpetuating it. Yet even here, there are hints of humanity, suggesting no one is entirely beyond redemption.
Each of these journeys mirrors the choices we face in life. Do we harden and compete at all costs? Do we cling to loyalty even when it hurts us? Do we hide our pain? Do we end up colluding with systems we once resisted? Therapy offers a place to explore these dynamics not in abstract terms, but as they play out in our own daily choices.
Redemption and Hope
It would be easy to read Squid Game as entirely cynical. The powerful remain in control, the system is never dismantled, and many good people perish. But the humanity that appears in small gestures of sacrifice, kindness and resistance is not erased. The story leaves us with a tension: the system is brutal, but people can still choose differently.
Therapy sits in that same tension. It does not deny the hardness of life or the weight of the systems we live under. But it insists on the possibility of choice. No one is beyond redemption. Even the parts of ourselves that have become harsh or complicit can be brought into awareness, understood, and softened.
This is one of the most hopeful things therapy offers. That your story is not finished. That the way you have played the game so far does not lock you into one path. That awareness itself is a form of freedom.
Reflecting on Our Own Games
So what might this mean for you, reading this now? You may not be facing literal life-or-death games. But perhaps you recognise the quieter pressures:
- Always feeling you must perform to be accepted.
- Living with debt, whether financial or emotional.
- Feeling trapped by rules you did not choose.
- Experiencing relationships as competition rather than connection.
- Wondering whether you are more like Gi-hun, Sang-woo, or the Front Man in how you respond to stress.
Therapy does not remove these pressures. But it creates space to notice them, name them, and choose how you respond. It is about stepping back from the automatic ways of surviving and asking, what would it mean to live with more freedom, more connection, more authenticity?
Reflection
Squid Game resonates because it exaggerates what many of us already know in quieter ways. Life can feel like a competition we never signed up for, where the rules are stacked against us. The show is brutal, but it is also honest about the way systems dehumanise and the way people still, somehow, reach for connection.
Therapy cannot promise to dismantle those systems. But it can offer you something just as important: a chance to see your own life more clearly, to question the rules you live by, and to rediscover the possibility of choice. Not to win the game, but to find another way of living altogether.
In the end, perhaps that is the most radical act of all. To refuse to let the game define you, and to live in contact with yourself and others, however harsh the world around you may be.