Play keeps the doctor at bay

While I was in my anthropology of madness class last week, the professor showed us a YouTube clip similar to this about Video Game Therapy for soldiers who have come back from Iraq with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The sights, sounds, smells, and feelings from Iraq are all revisited in "virtual Iraq," so the soldier basically re-lives the trauma that he faced while in combat. The clip that was shown in class also mentioned that the graphics aren't of the best quality so the the solder undergoing treatment can fill in a more realistic image of Iraq with his own memory of it.

At first, I thought it was counterintuitive to have someone, who suffered through so much, re-live the terror they faced in Iraq. The more I thought about it however, the more I realized that facing fear is the only way to overcome that fear. Hence, what the therapists are doing in this situation is making the soldiers face their fear; they must come face-to-face with what is causing their P.T.S.D., and so far the results seem quite promising. The soldiers have a better understanding of what they had to suffer through, and are even able to talk about what they saw, heard, and felt while in Iraq.

This idea of video games being used as therapy really intrigued me, so I Googled it and found several articles including this one about children with ADD using games to help focus their attention. Another article mentions the use of video game therapy for many types of diseases and disorders, from a child fighting leukemia to a person with Asperger's syndrome.

It is so amazing that something that used to be seen as a waste of time is now being used to help people live better lives. I just can't help but wonder if in the future, all psychological disorders will be treated and cured with video games. I guess we'll have to wait and see...

-Melissa Flores