In the early years weeks into the pandemic, Monet Goldman tried different strategies for dealing with stress. “I’m exercising, I’m meditating, I’m doing yoga,” says Goldman, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Santa Clara, California. But he didn’t start to feel better until he turned to a familiar pastime: video games. In the bright, immersive world of online gaming, Goldman finds solace — and he begins to have fun again. As he and his colleagues struggled to connect with virtual clients, he wondered if gaming could help his patients.
Goldman began training other clinicians to use online gaming in their work, starting with Roblox, a platform with millions of games that are especially popular with children ages 5 to 12 in the United States. During a Zoom session with two elementary school boys, Goldman kicked things off by asking the kids to name their favorite Roblox game. At first, “it was like radio silence. Everyone is off the camera,” said Goldman. Finally, a boy mentioned Brookhaven, a role-playing game set in a bustling city. Soon the children were excitedly leading each other’s hands around the game space, the shyness was forgotten.
Like conventional play therapy, which uses toys to help patients express thoughts and feelings, online games provide another way to communicate. For some people worried about their appearance or voice, says Goldman, gaming is an opportunity to discover “voices in different forms”, whether through avatars, artwork or other digital works. He found that children who had difficulty with face-to-face therapy began to come alive and develop more confidence in the virtual environment. “That’s the biggest benefit,” he said. Today, Goldman advises children, adolescents, and adults, combining play and talk therapy.
While replacing video games for therapeutic use is not new, interest among doctors in the format has increased dramatically after the pandemic caused users to suddenly turn to telehealth. . Josué Cardona, founder of Geek therapy, a non-profit organization that advocates for the use of video games and other popular mediums. In December 2019, Geek Therapy’s Facebook group had just under 1,000 members, according to Cardona; now it has more than 5,400. Clinicians use online gaming in a variety of ways, from engaging with clients on platforms like Roblox or Minecraft to having patients play independently for a specific therapeutic purpose.
How games can help
“Video games have that way attract attention and keep it, “could be the first step in helping patients manage distressing thoughts, Aimee Daramus, a clinical psychologist and author of Understanding Bipolar Disorder. In his work with adults with chronic mental illnesses, including anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia, Daramus uses video games as a bridge to other coping skills. If someone is overwhelmed by intrusive thoughts during a session, playing video games for a moment can help reduce anxiety. At that point, explains Daramus, a strategy like mindful awareness will become more accessible to the patient.
Some research suggests that video games may be as effective — and potentially more effective — as other mental health interventions, especially for anxiety. One year 2017 Research published in Prevention Science see that the game MindLight It is also effective as a cognitive behavioral therapy program in reducing anxiety in children. In another study, prescribing video games reduced patients’ anxiety more than adding a second drug to their treatment.
