I am neither a horror movie fan nor have I played more than a single game of Tetris but I am a retired clinical psychologist. I have used eye movement desensitisation with PTSD (especially military personnel).
Now, retired for more than 20 years, I haven't kept up with the psychotherapeutic literature. What a simple but apparantly effective self-help treatment for PTSD and intrusive visual images (possibly any intrusive thoughts). Wonderful! Thanks so much for this. I have no professional need for this now but I will readily recommend it to others.
I left the UK to live in Thailand in January 2002. Most of my colleagues of my age have also retired and some have died in the past few years. Thus, it is isn't very likely that I would be in a position to recommend this Tetris strategy.
I used eye movement desensitisation on 3 people who had been traumatised in the military during the trouble in Afghanistan.
Two of the men had flashbacks that I witnessed in my clinic. It seemed like a waking nightmare - dreaming with their eyes opened. They saw and heard things that were not present in the clinic. Their eyes moved like in rapid-eye-movement sleep. I had heard of EMD, read about it and tried it. It was a bit cumbersome to do it and I didn't like to trigger flashbacks.
I tried to use light hypnosis, instructing them to watch imaginary videos on a TV screen. I instructed them to sweep their eyes to the right and left of the imagined screen, back and forth, over and over. I instructed them to look left and right, over and over if they had a flashback at home or outside the clinic.
I also used the imaginary video watching technique when dealing with traumatic memories - with the eye sweeping and with imagining the screen flickering and fading to white.
These modifications helped and were easier than EMD. I think that Tetris with monitoring the dropping and placement of shapes will also disrupt any tendency to REM during the recall of traumatic and intrusive events.
You may contact me again but i do not think I will have any fresh clinical material to discuss with you.
Stage hypnosis, with people doing off things in front of an audience, possibly also involves eye movements in keeping with the instructed fantasy rather than reality. But these are unlikely to be traumatic images or to re-occur when the stage show is over.
Thank you Ingamscientist, Cheshir, Robin and Robin for this fascinating article. Reminds me of Angus Taylor’s story about how Greek Tragedy had a direct effect on PTSD, told in his book Wonderworks and in his interview with Brené Brown
I think it was the jump scares that happen a lot during horror movies 😂
I haven't tested this theory though...not a horror fan.
I've seen some studies on pain and video games, but a lot of it was focused on using the games as a distraction for short term pain (like needles) in children. I'll see if there's anything on chronic pain though!!
I heard something similar in a radio program not long ago, that people who were subjected to traumatic events and were provided with just ten minutes of time playing a strategy video game had fairly significant reductions in stress from that traumatic event. I'm pretty sure it was this study, now that I'm reading your take on it. And.... science is just so cool!!
I liked this particular study because the reduction in stress wasn't just some side benefit of playing games...the things that are happening in your brain as you move the blocks around playing Tetris directly interferes with how traumatic memories are formed.
Myself and a friend have a habit of going head to head in the original Dr. Mario game from 1990. Which is basically the same thing as Tetris, only more fun imo. We'll sit down and play for hours sometimes. And it's always a bit odd cause neither of us played it as kids.
It's oddly relaxing and mayyyyybe a bit addicting BUT I'm now going to officially say that it's all for a therapeutic purpose.
I am neither a horror movie fan nor have I played more than a single game of Tetris but I am a retired clinical psychologist. I have used eye movement desensitisation with PTSD (especially military personnel).
Now, retired for more than 20 years, I haven't kept up with the psychotherapeutic literature. What a simple but apparantly effective self-help treatment for PTSD and intrusive visual images (possibly any intrusive thoughts). Wonderful! Thanks so much for this. I have no professional need for this now but I will readily recommend it to others.
If I can bug you in a little while from now, I'd love to hear about stories from you and those you recommended this as a treatment!
It's not an official clinical study but I'd love to hear if it helped (and it'd be a great follow-up to this story too!)
I left the UK to live in Thailand in January 2002. Most of my colleagues of my age have also retired and some have died in the past few years. Thus, it is isn't very likely that I would be in a position to recommend this Tetris strategy.
I used eye movement desensitisation on 3 people who had been traumatised in the military during the trouble in Afghanistan.
Two of the men had flashbacks that I witnessed in my clinic. It seemed like a waking nightmare - dreaming with their eyes opened. They saw and heard things that were not present in the clinic. Their eyes moved like in rapid-eye-movement sleep. I had heard of EMD, read about it and tried it. It was a bit cumbersome to do it and I didn't like to trigger flashbacks.
I tried to use light hypnosis, instructing them to watch imaginary videos on a TV screen. I instructed them to sweep their eyes to the right and left of the imagined screen, back and forth, over and over. I instructed them to look left and right, over and over if they had a flashback at home or outside the clinic.
I also used the imaginary video watching technique when dealing with traumatic memories - with the eye sweeping and with imagining the screen flickering and fading to white.
These modifications helped and were easier than EMD. I think that Tetris with monitoring the dropping and placement of shapes will also disrupt any tendency to REM during the recall of traumatic and intrusive events.
You may contact me again but i do not think I will have any fresh clinical material to discuss with you.
Stage hypnosis, with people doing off things in front of an audience, possibly also involves eye movements in keeping with the instructed fantasy rather than reality. But these are unlikely to be traumatic images or to re-occur when the stage show is over.
Thank you Ingamscientist, Cheshir, Robin and Robin for this fascinating article. Reminds me of Angus Taylor’s story about how Greek Tragedy had a direct effect on PTSD, told in his book Wonderworks and in his interview with Brené Brown
How fascinating (also that horror unblocked your sinuses!) I wonder if any games can help with pain management?
I think it was the jump scares that happen a lot during horror movies 😂
I haven't tested this theory though...not a horror fan.
I've seen some studies on pain and video games, but a lot of it was focused on using the games as a distraction for short term pain (like needles) in children. I'll see if there's anything on chronic pain though!!
Luckily I don't suffer pain often but I do get migraines. Pain killers don't help. And I know many people struggle with chronic pain.
I heard something similar in a radio program not long ago, that people who were subjected to traumatic events and were provided with just ten minutes of time playing a strategy video game had fairly significant reductions in stress from that traumatic event. I'm pretty sure it was this study, now that I'm reading your take on it. And.... science is just so cool!!
I won't ever disagree that science is cool! 😁
I liked this particular study because the reduction in stress wasn't just some side benefit of playing games...the things that are happening in your brain as you move the blocks around playing Tetris directly interferes with how traumatic memories are formed.
Myself and a friend have a habit of going head to head in the original Dr. Mario game from 1990. Which is basically the same thing as Tetris, only more fun imo. We'll sit down and play for hours sometimes. And it's always a bit odd cause neither of us played it as kids.
It's oddly relaxing and mayyyyybe a bit addicting BUT I'm now going to officially say that it's all for a therapeutic purpose.
YES to playing video games for therapy!
And it's probably not just Tetris...many other games likely have a similar effect!