The Latest Views on PTSD and War Video Games

After my previous post "Coming Soon: War Video Game Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?" started some discussions, I reviewed the questions with childhood & adolescence social worker Anna Fewell of Green Chimneys, as well as a few other sources, to consider the latest views on this potential intersection between varieties of trauma and war video games.

There are several questions to consider, some of which are top priorities at the American Psychiatric Association (APA) which is hard at work on its fifth edition Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Psychological Disorders. The current one is known by your friendly neighborhood therapist as the DSM-IV-TR. Please join the discussion on any of these questions below. I've linked each one to some further reading on the issue. And please if you encounter them submit any studies which show opposing results as well...

How do psychiatrists define Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder? Psychiatrists remain in debate about related topics like childhood traumatic stress (when a kid loses or lacks a primary care-provider), vicarious or secondary traumatic-stress (when the trauma is either indirect, accumulated, or is absorbed from repeatedly discussing the trauma with another). Other topics for debate include whether and how gamers who remain hyper-vigilant through a visually violent game for sustained periods of time are changed by that, whether gamers spending hours on violent games can be de-sentized to real-life violence, and whether some gamers might be diagnosed and treated as addicts.

How can video games be helpful to combat veterans ramping down from their experience who encounter post-traumatic stress? Another view? Note that with video game therapy for combat PTSD the psychiatrist is usually walking the veteran through a virtual war experience not to fight and earn points but to simulate the environment in which they may have acquired the traumatic memory which affects them. The therapist can try to isolate each input - lighting, sounds, physiological reactions, perhaps smells - which triggers the veteran's painful memory response in order to learn which triggers might be addressed. So this is very different from game playing with the goal of ramping up, gaining points and scoring high by battling another team in the violent context.

How can video games be helpful for therapy among people with other health concerns?

Could violent video games be associated with aggressive behavior among gamers? Another view?

How are game playing and other physiological and social behaviors potentially related?

Do violent games really de-sentitize players to real-life violence?

What's that theory about race as a factor in how people view games; the African-American and Hispanic oriented games like Grand Theft Auto viewed negatively while more Caucasian oriented games viewed as educational?

Physiologically, what is happening when a gamer puts his or her mind into a highly competitive, if not violent, video game?

Of course, this is just a sampler platter of studies, so if you're following this topic you can find more on Google Scholar if not via the APA. If you're an expert on these topics, please write in and feel free to correct me if I've misrepresented anything here. Many of us love games, including those cinematic war games, and love those who play them. This is more a discussion about what associations there may be between real virtual violence, and psychological resilience.

[Photo: Men at Play (Shooting Zombies), Toby Otter]