Heavy Metal Therapy has come to Huddersfield and it could be just the boost you need for your mental health.

Award-winning Heavy Metal Therapy is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company (CIC) which hosts mental health peer support groups for people who love alternative music.

The company, based in Wakefield, hosts support groups up and down the country and now has a Dungeons & Dragons support group session at Powder Monkey Gaming in Moldgreen.

Dr Kate Quinn, a clinical psychologist and co-director of the CIC, said: “We’ve been running peer support groups for well over a year now for people in alternative music communities, and we’ve always had some flexibility in terms of the activities at the groups.

“Some of them are mainly just chat spaces, others do crafting activities. However, Carl Pickles, who is a dungeon master for Dungeons & Dragons and other games, contacted us to ask if we had thought about playing D&D as part of one of our groups.

“We know that role-playing games like D&D can be beneficial for mental health and we teamed up with Powder Monkey Gaming in Moldgreen as Carl is already a dungeon master there.

“Powder Monkey have been very generous in giving us the space and supporting the organisation.

“There does seem to be an overlap in that D&D players are often into metal music and vice versa.”

The group meets at Powder Monkey Gaming at 271 Old Leeds Road, Moldgreen, on the last Friday of every month (7pm).

Anyone aged 16 or over can just turn up. It’s friendly and free and beginners to Dungeons & Dragons and role-playing games in general are just as welcome as old hands.

Kate added: “We meet up once a month and have a beginners-friendly game, and we also have a trained facilitator from Heavy Metal Therapy there.

“The aim is to be able to chat about mental health things if people want to but also to make it easier for people who may struggle to access D&D because of mental health or neurodivergence.”

The next session at Powder Monkey is on Friday October 31.