Playing videogames is another drug with which to escape reality. But at least it gives you something to do rather than spending all your time dwelling in depression, which is why I have around 2800 hours playing Heroes of the Storm.
My experience has been that negative thoughts and memories are less likely to occur while playing, especially if you have to communicate verbally with teammates in order to succeed.
Making creative works using your hands is another non-digital outlet which keeps the mind focused.
Unfortunately, it's not really a permanent solution as intrusive thought and memories begin to show up during downtime.
> Playing videogames is another drug with which to escape reality.
Perhaps, but that isn't what this research (and the related research it builds on); this is about a specific kind of task (Tetris is the specific instance studied in this and some of the other research, but there is some on closely related, similar tasks) and how its use closely after traumatic events prevents formation of intrusive memories from the trauma, and how (combined with particular other techniques) it can disrupt established intrusive memories from past trauma.
> Unfortunately, it's not really a permanent solution as intrusive thought and memories begin to show up during downtime.
In the form studied, it actually is a solution with permanent effects.
EDIT: “Tetris is highly-effective, unsupervised, self-applied first aid for psychic trauma” is actually a very big deal (as is the supervised treatment result for established trauma.)
> Playing videogames is another drug with which to escape reality.
"Escaping reality" is as old as humanity, I don't see why we need to think of it as a drug, or even a negative thing. Are books drugs? movies? plays? stories told around a fire? Video games are just the latest (really awesome) iteration of that.
Obviously there are some disclaimers. Some games are designed like a drug, or like gambling, and some people are more susceptible to addiction. But I think in general, we need to stop feeling guitly about taking part in something that we enjoy.
> Unfortunately, it's not really a permanent solution as intrusive thought and memories begin to show up during downtime.
Hospitals can definitely use it as a protocol to help prevent or minimize the establishment of the traditional semi-permanent traumatic stress disorders, though.
Traumatic stress can often cause depressive symptoms, but this technique isn’t directly addressing depression - it is addressing the prevention of traumatic stress disorders in the first 24 hours after a traumatic event.
I've found it helps by forcing focus on a narrow task. In these tests they used tetris, but rockband or guitar hero is similar too.
There's some evidence to support anxiety being tied to rumination, thought loops, hypervigilance and such. If you're able to force yourself to focus on a narrow task I think that can help relieve some of that in a way that lingers for a bit. Makes it easier to reframe stuff.
Good to read I am not the only one. Been depressed for a few months now and HOTS (especially ARAM, which is really fast-paced) helps me on the bad days to put my mind on ease. On the bad days I always feel more relieved and less stressed after a couple hours of HOTS. I hope Blizzard won't pull the plug on this any time soon, till then: see you in the Nexus sir!
it's not really a permanent solution as intrusive thought and memories begin to show up during downtime.
Sometimes breaking the cycle is enough to stop things. Other times it's enough to give the reprieve needed to for other methods to take hold. And, yes, sometimes it's just a temporary thing and removing it brings back the bad stuff. Videogames can do any of the 3 above roles though.
Diverting your attention doesn't help long-term. Read about EMDR, it may be related to this video game concept. If so, the effectiveness will depend on the game as well as how much you engage the traumatic thoughts during play.
I remember when dealing with depression an felt like I didn't have control of my thoughts at times. Doctor told me to "do what you liked to do before it was this way, even if you don't like doing it now".
For me that was video games. So I played final fantasy and other games a great deal and found that the issues I was thinking of often did start to fade over time.
I don't know if it was the fact that the task required my attention so much or a sort of zen experience I could get with the game ... or just time passing, but it felt like it worked.
The only downside I felt was how not "in the world" I was at that time. Not really socializing much and etc in favor of drowning myself in video games.
Ultimately I think it helped me cope, but I also was aware that it was a very alluring sort of way of life to work, school, escape into video games, and nothing else.
Seems to me it's retraining the network that it is sufficiently far from the source of the trauma which can't happen until experiences fill in -- not to be confused with just time passing; experiences are the unit of time in the mind
I have the same experience. I was locked at home playing games, gaining weight and loosing friends.
So I stopped playing games and started to live again. First I was not in the shape to meet people a lot. It was too exhausting to concentrate on them. So I started running and exercising regularly. It helped me cope with uncontrolled mind. Tiring myself physically really improved my mood and sleep. After half the year I felt so fit that it also boosted my self confidence. This also helped me to look attractive for other people. I stoped looking like nerd wasting time with games, but I started to look like fit guy full of energy ready for anything.
Computer games felt the same as medication. It did not help me to recover but it just helped me not feel shit about myself and kept me at the same place.
I did this after a traumatic brain injury, and ended up playing too much video games, neglecting other aspects of my health.
Can't say that overall it was a net positive experience, although it did get my mind off the trauma and the traumatic memory and it did help moderately with depression (I am not depressed now, about a year later)
> Ultimately I think it helped me cope, but I also was aware that it was a very alluring sort of way of life to work, school, escape into video games, and nothing else.
Ah yes, that's generally the conclusion I came to as well. I'm scaling it down as of this moment, personally.
My anecdata to the contrary. I feel like I've spent about 6-8 hours of my day on average, playing videogames for the past >20 years (I know, healthy, right?), and even during gameplay I still think of all the worst embarrassing moments at school and the shit one of my parents put me through, and the mistakes I've made at work... No doubt games have a suppressive effect pretty often, but whatever my mental process is, those memories always end up floating right back to the surface.
I think I'd add 2 suggestions (not a scientist, but I think they're worth considering):
1) it matters whether your mind is fully engaged in the game, or you have some room to bring in these shitty memories (for example, I played quite a few idle games, or MMOs that involved a lot of waiting) and 2) if you still find yourself reliving this shit during gameplay, maybe you're better off seeking other escapes (*let's not get destructive though, ie cocaine/heroin/meth), or doing productive things (sublimation in psychology) and slowly tackling this problem yourself using gradual accomplishments, building your confidence, breaking down events one piece at a time, etc.
I once saw something quite wise, which is the difference between a self soothing and self numbing. Self soothing is an activity you can do to handle a stressor you have at the moment and then you can move on from. But if you have to continually perform the behavior and never actually move on, you’re just numbing and putting off the processing part of pain/trauma.
I have that same issue with playing the piano. I think the problem is that your mind necessarily needs to flail around in the creative process in order to progress unless you're playing the simplest piece on the piano or Tetris on the computer. As such, it becomes increasingly likely over time that your creativity will stumble into something you didn't want to relive and then everything comes grinding to a halt.
I'd imagine that the most brainless casual games would avoid this sort of thing.
I had a very traumatic experience at the start of 2020. I remembered reading studies like this in the past, so after it happened I played Tetris on my Switch for a couple of hours.
While I did deal with high levels of anxiety for a few months after, I haven't dealt with flashbacks or intrusive memories at all. At this point it feels like a distant memory that I don't really think about at all anymore.
N of 1, but it seemed to help in my case. When possible, I plan to do the same following traumatic events in the future.
Since everyone is posting their anecdata here's mine having to deal with chronic pain and the stress of lacking a diagnosis for its cause:
Video games distract me like a cat gets distracted by the laser pointer. And when it's time to go to bed and get a shut eye all my worries, anxieties about the pain and unemployment come flooding in and I haven't slept more than 5 hours for months. And when I was younger games helped me with the lack of friends and cope with stuff like my parents being divorce and getting bullied. My grades fell apart too.
So yeah, video games like all other reality escapes work, but if you ask me I'd rather get a diagnosis, a treatment and a job than shove my face in the next big game release again. I'd rather play video games the same way a casual/social drinker drinks alcohol, and not like someone doing it to avoid something that's painful.
There's some overlap here with the therapy technique called EMDR (used to treat acute PTSD). Both EMDR and the Tetris study involve thinking about the traumatic event while experiencing bilateral stimulation.
Studies on bilateral stimulation look really promising as a tool to manage trauma:
(1) Research on this has consistently used "Tetris"; who knows if you'd get the same effect from, say, "Xenoblade Chronicles". (e.g. people might not manage the controls, get sufficiently engaged, etc.)
(2) "Experimental Trauma" looks like a problem for the Human Subjects Review Board. I've been thinking about a weight loss plan based on inducing a psychogenic fever but I think it would be too rough on people.
As someone who played video games a lot during their hospital stays, this has the ring of truth. I have a lot of intrusive memories but surprisingly 14 childhood surgeries aren’t among them now that I think on it.
I play Half Life 2 to ease depression since I won't tolerate the side effects of SSRI medication. It's the only video game I play and I've beaten it literally hundreds of time. I can fly through the whole thing in about 4 hours on the hardest setting I've played it so much. I don't know why it works and I don't want to even poke at it lest it stop working but when I have an "episode" where everything goes gray I just fire the game up and start waxing head crabs. Pretty soon I'm right as rain.
As an addendum, the only thing I don't like about my M1 Mac is HL2 doesn't work on it other than through Crossover Office and even then it's extremely glitchy. If anybody has suggestions to get it running well I'm all eyes.
This word "trauma" is really fucking trendy right now. Whenever a thing like this starts, I want to know -- how did it get started? Who was the first person to push this?
Seems to me that it sort of started with legit PTSD from Iraq/Afghanistan war veterans after 9/11. And then it got taken up for a little in some feminist circles -- first like, "women who've been raped have PTSD", and then "a bad date leaves you with PTSD", and then, "to be born outside the privileged categories gives you PTSD" (so you can be forgiven for whatever bizarre behavior). But then it died down. Until recently, when there was a big resurgence on a bunch of news outlets -- "trauma, trauma, trauma".
I wish I could trace this meme backwards to the source.
Clearly people think they can get an advantage out of this idea.
_The Body Keeps The Score_ is a good intro to what trauma is and isn’t, its history, and how it differs to PTSD.
Interestingly, it also covers the absurd lengths the militaries of various countries went to to suppress the idea of trauma arising from the world wars (e.g. ‘shell-shock’ could appear in no US army document for any reason, until the 70s I think).
etymonline suggest 'Trauma' moved from it's more literal meaning of 'wound' to encompass 'psychic wound, unpleasant experience which causes abnormal stress' around 1894.
I do think it entered the zeitgeist and now there’s a culture of people who believe they’re irrevocably broken, but this looks like a promising treatment plan for people who have experienced something terrible.
Shouldn't the goal be to deal with the psychological trauma rather than engaging in activities that suppress memories of the trauma?
During the pandemic I went down the rabbit hole of the fitness industry. You will find thousands of videos on YouTube/memes on forums that teach people that they can get over an ex by just focusing on getting shredded and developing a killer physique. To me that is akin to what this study suggests: avoid the trauma by distracting yourself with another activity. While self-improvement is commendable, I don't think avoidance tactics are the best way to treat the root cause of the problem though.
I've gone through some traumatic shit and some of it just could not be dealt with until I had gained some distance from it. It does still need to be dealt with eventually but it helps a ton if it's not something that actively makes you want to curl up into a ball and hide every time you think about it.
Ultimately, sure, you need to sit down and open up the vault you've put this pain in and deal with it. But it's a lot easier if you don't get consumed in a wave of remembered fear and stress every time you even think about touching that vault. This article suggests that distracting yourself with Tetris soon after the painful experience helps avoid that happening.
I think there has been a pradigm shift in this regard in the last decade.
It really used to be about "dealing" with trauma. Now AFAIKT many psychologists believe that the end result matters the most. If you suppressed your trauma and now you feel fine and functioning, who cares? This is especially true for sever trauma, whatever works works, suppersion is OK. (We have plenty of lifetime examples. e g., Many Holocaust survivors and veterns who actively run away from reliving or even thinking about their experience, and conducted an healthy life)
I'm not saying someone should avoid treatment, only that we should not dismiss suppression as an illegitimate tool. It works for many (not for all of course).
You can only deal with psychological issues on a long term basis from a position of relative calm, which isn't going to be the case when the sufferer is in crisis.
Distraction (like medication) is a tool that can help the individual get their head above water in those moments, but, yes, presumably that wouldn't be the end goal.
That assumes the person currently has the capacity to deal with it. In my own experience, trauma can be too overwhelming.
Medication or other interventions may be required before therapy techniques become effective. Video games have fewer side effects than anti-depressants and aren't physically addictive like tranquilizers.
I think sometimes it might be necessary to create a bit of a buffer between the truama and "dealing with it." When it's still fresh it can be hard to regulate one's emotional state, and it's nigh impossible to "deal" when the thoughts of the situation/event send you in to a really bad emotional state of panic and endless rumination because you either lack the tools for emotional regulation, or utilizing them doesn't even come to mind in the first place. A mind under psychological distress is a messy dark place, and only after the fact do you look back on things and wonder why you spent such a long time suffering instead of working yourself out of it.
Sometimes you have to treat the symptoms so you can get the person functional enough to then start treating the root cause. For example, this is the point of anti-depressants and fever-reducing medication. They don't treat the underlying disease. They just keep the symptoms from killing the patient long enough to do something about the disease.
A person with particularly bad PTSD may not want to see a therapist and start rooting around in those bad memories. If the overall anxiety level associated with those memories can be reduced, then maybe the therapy can start.
> The 12-min trauma film consisted of 11 different scenes involving actual or threatened death, as well as serious injury; the film functioned as an experimental analogue of viewing a traumatic event in real life. Scenes contained different types of context; examples include a young girl hit by a car with blood dripping out of her ear, a man drowning in the sea, and a van hitting a teenage boy while he was using his mobile phone crossing the road. This film footage has been used in previous studies to evoke intrusive memories. The film was projected on a 100-cm × 133-cm screen using an NEC LT25 projector. Viewing distance was approximately 175 cm.
Even though there is controversy around his ideas, I have an armchair theory about why this study yielded plausibly successful results, and it's that Maslow's "peak experiences [0] provides a framework for it.
The armchair premise is that we naturally orient our identity and sense of self according to memorable experiences, and as a consequence, our most intense experiences (good or bad) tend to become a constant reference point for who are believe we are.
High and low watermarks in our life become defining to an identity, which our ego then adopts and does its job to defend it (the self) from all threats. You can "become," the trauma, and your sense of self, via the mechanism of ego, protects the integrity of that identity against all potential threats to it - even though the experience isn't you. Video games in this study enabled a kind of re-basing of identity from the experimental trauma by providing an equivalent or greater intense experience which memory and identity can rebind to. It's also possibly why psychedelics are thought to "cure" depression, because by using an intense experience to rebase your identity on memories other than the negative ones, you in-effect redirect your ego to protect the right thing about your true self instead of it reinforcing the negative experience that had substituted itself into your identity because it was so intense.
Utter armchair mind hacking, but it's testable. We can treat the ego as a kind of clutch mechanism where you can disengage it to switch gears, and re-engage it to apply the will of self. Intensity disengages it.
If you rethink depression as a kind of mental autoimmune disorder where the defense mechanism for your sense of self (ego) turns its aggression inward, a super intense experience can unbind the ego from that identity long enough for your true self to re-establish its primacy. Suicidal ideation in that framework is a craving for that level of replacement intensity, and not necessarily death itself, just something intense enough to release your ego long enough to switch gears.
Jumping out of a plane, graduating university, having a kid, winning an award, are all examples of positive peak experiences people remember as reference points to locate their sense of self.
What I'm suggesting is the implied underlying mechanism behind the study could be applied more generally to developing more controlled peak experiences that "blow your mind," in a way that dislodges the ego defence long enough that you can overpower a traumatic memory with a current more intense one, so when your ego re-establishes itself, it is protecting the integrity of the new experience as a rebased identity.
Crankery, probably, but if you do find a way to blow your mind and it improves your outlook, video games are fun, but I think we need to find more things that really blow minds.
>We investigated whether reconsolidation—the process during which memories become malleable when recalled—can be blocked using a cognitive task and whether such an approach can reduce these unbidden intrusions.
It seems like there's nothing "special" about video games, here, and that anything that sustains attention over a period of hours ought to work. A few decades ago, this might have been prayer, for example. I would expect reading and coding to work as well.
[+] [-] TheAceOfHearts|4 years ago|reply
My experience has been that negative thoughts and memories are less likely to occur while playing, especially if you have to communicate verbally with teammates in order to succeed.
Making creative works using your hands is another non-digital outlet which keeps the mind focused.
Unfortunately, it's not really a permanent solution as intrusive thought and memories begin to show up during downtime.
[+] [-] dragonwriter|4 years ago|reply
Perhaps, but that isn't what this research (and the related research it builds on); this is about a specific kind of task (Tetris is the specific instance studied in this and some of the other research, but there is some on closely related, similar tasks) and how its use closely after traumatic events prevents formation of intrusive memories from the trauma, and how (combined with particular other techniques) it can disrupt established intrusive memories from past trauma.
> Unfortunately, it's not really a permanent solution as intrusive thought and memories begin to show up during downtime.
In the form studied, it actually is a solution with permanent effects.
EDIT: “Tetris is highly-effective, unsupervised, self-applied first aid for psychic trauma” is actually a very big deal (as is the supervised treatment result for established trauma.)
[+] [-] vlunkr|4 years ago|reply
"Escaping reality" is as old as humanity, I don't see why we need to think of it as a drug, or even a negative thing. Are books drugs? movies? plays? stories told around a fire? Video games are just the latest (really awesome) iteration of that.
Obviously there are some disclaimers. Some games are designed like a drug, or like gambling, and some people are more susceptible to addiction. But I think in general, we need to stop feeling guitly about taking part in something that we enjoy.
[+] [-] nverno|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] singlow|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hart_russell|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 9wzYQbTYsAIc|4 years ago|reply
Hospitals can definitely use it as a protocol to help prevent or minimize the establishment of the traditional semi-permanent traumatic stress disorders, though.
Traumatic stress can often cause depressive symptoms, but this technique isn’t directly addressing depression - it is addressing the prevention of traumatic stress disorders in the first 24 hours after a traumatic event.
[+] [-] gonehome|4 years ago|reply
There's some evidence to support anxiety being tied to rumination, thought loops, hypervigilance and such. If you're able to force yourself to focus on a narrow task I think that can help relieve some of that in a way that lingers for a bit. Makes it easier to reframe stuff.
[+] [-] thedespone|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Pet_Ant|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ineedasername|4 years ago|reply
Sometimes breaking the cycle is enough to stop things. Other times it's enough to give the reprieve needed to for other methods to take hold. And, yes, sometimes it's just a temporary thing and removing it brings back the bad stuff. Videogames can do any of the 3 above roles though.
[+] [-] scollet|4 years ago|reply
Maybe the most trivial of games. Even naughts and crosses has deeper implications than the physical mechanics.
Most games have a grand appreciation of reality like reading Frankenstein or watching The Lighthouse.
Perhaps it's the low stakes context that makes them more accessible, and thus informs our understanding of things outside that context.
[+] [-] phkahler|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] petesergeant|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abledon|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] duxup|4 years ago|reply
For me that was video games. So I played final fantasy and other games a great deal and found that the issues I was thinking of often did start to fade over time.
I don't know if it was the fact that the task required my attention so much or a sort of zen experience I could get with the game ... or just time passing, but it felt like it worked.
The only downside I felt was how not "in the world" I was at that time. Not really socializing much and etc in favor of drowning myself in video games.
Ultimately I think it helped me cope, but I also was aware that it was a very alluring sort of way of life to work, school, escape into video games, and nothing else.
[+] [-] musingsole|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kubav|4 years ago|reply
So I stopped playing games and started to live again. First I was not in the shape to meet people a lot. It was too exhausting to concentrate on them. So I started running and exercising regularly. It helped me cope with uncontrolled mind. Tiring myself physically really improved my mood and sleep. After half the year I felt so fit that it also boosted my self confidence. This also helped me to look attractive for other people. I stoped looking like nerd wasting time with games, but I started to look like fit guy full of energy ready for anything.
Computer games felt the same as medication. It did not help me to recover but it just helped me not feel shit about myself and kept me at the same place.
[+] [-] antisthenes|4 years ago|reply
Can't say that overall it was a net positive experience, although it did get my mind off the trauma and the traumatic memory and it did help moderately with depression (I am not depressed now, about a year later)
> Ultimately I think it helped me cope, but I also was aware that it was a very alluring sort of way of life to work, school, escape into video games, and nothing else.
Ah yes, that's generally the conclusion I came to as well. I'm scaling it down as of this moment, personally.
[+] [-] GoblinSlayer|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lupire|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] oneepic|4 years ago|reply
I think I'd add 2 suggestions (not a scientist, but I think they're worth considering): 1) it matters whether your mind is fully engaged in the game, or you have some room to bring in these shitty memories (for example, I played quite a few idle games, or MMOs that involved a lot of waiting) and 2) if you still find yourself reliving this shit during gameplay, maybe you're better off seeking other escapes (*let's not get destructive though, ie cocaine/heroin/meth), or doing productive things (sublimation in psychology) and slowly tackling this problem yourself using gradual accomplishments, building your confidence, breaking down events one piece at a time, etc.
[+] [-] SamoyedFurFluff|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jimbob45|4 years ago|reply
I'd imagine that the most brainless casual games would avoid this sort of thing.
[+] [-] Trasmatta|4 years ago|reply
While I did deal with high levels of anxiety for a few months after, I haven't dealt with flashbacks or intrusive memories at all. At this point it feels like a distant memory that I don't really think about at all anymore.
N of 1, but it seemed to help in my case. When possible, I plan to do the same following traumatic events in the future.
[+] [-] Arisaka1|4 years ago|reply
Video games distract me like a cat gets distracted by the laser pointer. And when it's time to go to bed and get a shut eye all my worries, anxieties about the pain and unemployment come flooding in and I haven't slept more than 5 hours for months. And when I was younger games helped me with the lack of friends and cope with stuff like my parents being divorce and getting bullied. My grades fell apart too.
So yeah, video games like all other reality escapes work, but if you ask me I'd rather get a diagnosis, a treatment and a job than shove my face in the next big game release again. I'd rather play video games the same way a casual/social drinker drinks alcohol, and not like someone doing it to avoid something that's painful.
[+] [-] CarbonJ|4 years ago|reply
Studies on bilateral stimulation look really promising as a tool to manage trauma:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5061320/ (note the before / after section)
[+] [-] PaulHoule|4 years ago|reply
(2) "Experimental Trauma" looks like a problem for the Human Subjects Review Board. I've been thinking about a weight loss plan based on inducing a psychogenic fever but I think it would be too rough on people.
[+] [-] madrox|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nathanasmith|4 years ago|reply
As an addendum, the only thing I don't like about my M1 Mac is HL2 doesn't work on it other than through Crossover Office and even then it's extremely glitchy. If anybody has suggestions to get it running well I'm all eyes.
[+] [-] tnorthcutt|4 years ago|reply
And an article that looks like it's covering the same or similar research: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/04/09/5230114...
[+] [-] akeck|4 years ago|reply
[1] https://janemcgonigal.com/
[+] [-] dragonwriter|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ethbr0|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FooBarBizBazz|4 years ago|reply
Seems to me that it sort of started with legit PTSD from Iraq/Afghanistan war veterans after 9/11. And then it got taken up for a little in some feminist circles -- first like, "women who've been raped have PTSD", and then "a bad date leaves you with PTSD", and then, "to be born outside the privileged categories gives you PTSD" (so you can be forgiven for whatever bizarre behavior). But then it died down. Until recently, when there was a big resurgence on a bunch of news outlets -- "trauma, trauma, trauma".
I wish I could trace this meme backwards to the source.
Clearly people think they can get an advantage out of this idea.
[+] [-] rukuu001|4 years ago|reply
Interestingly, it also covers the absurd lengths the militaries of various countries went to to suppress the idea of trauma arising from the world wars (e.g. ‘shell-shock’ could appear in no US army document for any reason, until the 70s I think).
[+] [-] ZeroGravitas|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DantesKite|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zozin|4 years ago|reply
During the pandemic I went down the rabbit hole of the fitness industry. You will find thousands of videos on YouTube/memes on forums that teach people that they can get over an ex by just focusing on getting shredded and developing a killer physique. To me that is akin to what this study suggests: avoid the trauma by distracting yourself with another activity. While self-improvement is commendable, I don't think avoidance tactics are the best way to treat the root cause of the problem though.
[+] [-] egypturnash|4 years ago|reply
Ultimately, sure, you need to sit down and open up the vault you've put this pain in and deal with it. But it's a lot easier if you don't get consumed in a wave of remembered fear and stress every time you even think about touching that vault. This article suggests that distracting yourself with Tetris soon after the painful experience helps avoid that happening.
[+] [-] amitport|4 years ago|reply
It really used to be about "dealing" with trauma. Now AFAIKT many psychologists believe that the end result matters the most. If you suppressed your trauma and now you feel fine and functioning, who cares? This is especially true for sever trauma, whatever works works, suppersion is OK. (We have plenty of lifetime examples. e g., Many Holocaust survivors and veterns who actively run away from reliving or even thinking about their experience, and conducted an healthy life)
I'm not saying someone should avoid treatment, only that we should not dismiss suppression as an illegitimate tool. It works for many (not for all of course).
[+] [-] mellosouls|4 years ago|reply
Distraction (like medication) is a tool that can help the individual get their head above water in those moments, but, yes, presumably that wouldn't be the end goal.
[+] [-] kayodelycaon|4 years ago|reply
Medication or other interventions may be required before therapy techniques become effective. Video games have fewer side effects than anti-depressants and aren't physically addictive like tranquilizers.
[+] [-] pope_meat|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moron4hire|4 years ago|reply
A person with particularly bad PTSD may not want to see a therapist and start rooting around in those bad memories. If the overall anxiety level associated with those memories can be reduced, then maybe the therapy can start.
[+] [-] hollerith|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Igelau|4 years ago|reply
> The 12-min trauma film consisted of 11 different scenes involving actual or threatened death, as well as serious injury; the film functioned as an experimental analogue of viewing a traumatic event in real life. Scenes contained different types of context; examples include a young girl hit by a car with blood dripping out of her ear, a man drowning in the sea, and a van hitting a teenage boy while he was using his mobile phone crossing the road. This film footage has been used in previous studies to evoke intrusive memories. The film was projected on a 100-cm × 133-cm screen using an NEC LT25 projector. Viewing distance was approximately 175 cm.
[+] [-] motohagiography|4 years ago|reply
The armchair premise is that we naturally orient our identity and sense of self according to memorable experiences, and as a consequence, our most intense experiences (good or bad) tend to become a constant reference point for who are believe we are.
High and low watermarks in our life become defining to an identity, which our ego then adopts and does its job to defend it (the self) from all threats. You can "become," the trauma, and your sense of self, via the mechanism of ego, protects the integrity of that identity against all potential threats to it - even though the experience isn't you. Video games in this study enabled a kind of re-basing of identity from the experimental trauma by providing an equivalent or greater intense experience which memory and identity can rebind to. It's also possibly why psychedelics are thought to "cure" depression, because by using an intense experience to rebase your identity on memories other than the negative ones, you in-effect redirect your ego to protect the right thing about your true self instead of it reinforcing the negative experience that had substituted itself into your identity because it was so intense.
Utter armchair mind hacking, but it's testable. We can treat the ego as a kind of clutch mechanism where you can disengage it to switch gears, and re-engage it to apply the will of self. Intensity disengages it.
If you rethink depression as a kind of mental autoimmune disorder where the defense mechanism for your sense of self (ego) turns its aggression inward, a super intense experience can unbind the ego from that identity long enough for your true self to re-establish its primacy. Suicidal ideation in that framework is a craving for that level of replacement intensity, and not necessarily death itself, just something intense enough to release your ego long enough to switch gears.
Jumping out of a plane, graduating university, having a kid, winning an award, are all examples of positive peak experiences people remember as reference points to locate their sense of self.
What I'm suggesting is the implied underlying mechanism behind the study could be applied more generally to developing more controlled peak experiences that "blow your mind," in a way that dislodges the ego defence long enough that you can overpower a traumatic memory with a current more intense one, so when your ego re-establishes itself, it is protecting the integrity of the new experience as a rebased identity.
Crankery, probably, but if you do find a way to blow your mind and it improves your outlook, video games are fun, but I think we need to find more things that really blow minds.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_experience
[+] [-] GoblinSlayer|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] omginternets|4 years ago|reply
It seems like there's nothing "special" about video games, here, and that anything that sustains attention over a period of hours ought to work. A few decades ago, this might have been prayer, for example. I would expect reading and coding to work as well.