Videogames as Therapy: A Review of the Medical and Psychological Literature

Introduction

The most reported effects of videogames typically the alleged negative consequences. These include video game addiction (e.g., Griffiths, 2008a, 2008b; Kuss & Griffiths, 2011), increased aggressiveness (e.g., Anderson & Bushman, 2001), and the various medical and psychosocial effects (Griffiths, 2005). However, there are abundant references to the positive benefits of videogames in the literature including various review papers (e.g., Griffiths, 2004; Kato, 2010; Lawrence, 1986; Rauterberg, 2004; Wiemeyer, 2010). Despite studies into the more negative effects, for over 25 years, researchers have been using videogames as a means of researching individuals. Videogames may be useful in therapy in different ways including:

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  Videogame as a therapeutic setting: Videogames allow participants to experience novelty and challenge when engaging in fictional activities without real life consequences (Washburn & Gulledge, 1995). For instance, through game immersion, anxious patients can be presented with aversive stimuli via a video game to progressively eliminate their anxiety. Adopting fictional roles have also been used for encouraging the practice of healthy behaviors and developing social skills (Brown, Lieberman, Germeny, Fan, Wilson, & Pasta, 1997; Lieberman, 2001). Furthermore, psychotherapy has been conducted exclusively in videogame settings (Coyle, Matthews, Sharry, et al. 2005).

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  Videogame as a therapeutic or intervention tool: Playing videogames makes it easier to achieve and maintain a person’s undivided attention for long periods of time (Donchin, 1995). For this reason, videogames can be used as a cognitive distractor task helping patients in pain to learn relaxation techniques and/or to achieve the relaxation and ease that can be essential for successful experimentation. Furthermore, the immersive nature of videogames may facilitate the suspension of reality that can be used in order to access different states of consciousness helping people regress to childhood play.

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  Videogame as a measurement tool: Videogames can allow measuring of performance on a very wide variety of tasks, and they can be easily changed adapted, standardized and understood. Also, videogames can be used to observe individual behavior or performance and examine individual characteristics such as self-esteem, self-concept, goal-setting, and individual differences.

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  Videogame as a motivating tool: Videogames are fun and stimulating, so they can be used to assist patients in setting goals, ensuring goal rehearsal, providing feedback, reinforcement, and maintaining records of behavioral change.

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  Videogame as a clinical research tool: Videogames can provide a large spectrum of people’s profiles and diversity in study cases since diversity of videogames can attract participation of individuals across many demographic boundaries (e.g., age, gender, ethnicity, educational status) (Washburn & Gulledge, 1995); especially with the implementations of online videogame in clinical settings that may facilitate access to individuals situated in different physical locations and/or to provide therapy to the ones that have difficulties to attend health care services.

Research dating right back to the early 1980s has consistently shown that playing computer games (irrespective of genre) produces increases in reaction times, improved hand-eye co-ordination and raises players' self-esteem. What's more, curiosity, fun and the nature of the challenge also appear to add to a game's therapeutic potential. Commonly, videogames developed specifically for therapeutic interventions or health care (often referred to as ‘good games’ or ‘serious games’) have been used in therapy. However, some commercial videogames have also been adapted and used for therapeutic purposes.