Digital Application to Create a Safe Place

Abstract

The researcher participated in a single case self-study to explore the use of a digital application to create a safe place. The intention in using this digital application, Animal Crossing Pocket Camp, was for the researcher to evaluate its usefulness by creating a personal safe place. The results of this experience potentially has implications for being used in clinical settings, along with the support of an art therapist, to aid a survivor of trauma diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder. The researcher found that by doing activities within the game with the ability to be creative, a safe place could be created.

Introduction

This study was conducted to explore using a videogame app to create a safe space for patients with PTSD and trauma survivors. To support the study, research on videogames used in therapy, VR technology used in therapy, as well as steps to creating a safe space within therapy settings was researched. The study used a free-form reflection and drawing exercise to prompt what items in the game made the researcher feel safe.

Literature Review

The DSM-V describes PTSD as an “exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence” (DSM-5). A patient must experience one or more symptoms such as involuntary, intrusive memories, distressing dreams, and dissociative reactions where the patient feels like the event is reoccuring. The patient will also avoid places or stimuli that trigger thoughts or memories of the traumatic event.

The definition for safe place is a place or environment in which a person or category of people can feel confident that they will not be exposed to discrimination, criticism, harassment, or any other emotional or physical harm. In a therapeutic setting, safe places are used to create environments for trauma patients to heal. According to Fisher, therapists help patients create safe environments as she writes, “The message for the patient is a simple one: no recovery from trauma is possible without attending to issues of safety, care for the self, reparative connections to other human beings, and a renewed faith in the universe. The therapist's job is not just to be a witness to this process but to teach the patient how” (Fisher 1999).

Videogames can be used for patients with a traumatic brain injury (Llorens et al. (2015). Videogames can improve self awareness and social skills with adult patients. In this study, 8 patients with similar cognitive conditions sat down and played a digital board game. The screen was a touch screen, which made the game interactive by having patients touch elements on the screen to play.

Virtual‐reality exposure therapy (VRET) has significantly reduced PTSD symptoms in military service members (Rizzo et al., 2011). Many veterans play military first person shooter games (MFPS). MFPS can reduce the amount of trauma reminders and PTSD symptoms, (Etter, Cameron et. al 2017).

Virtual reality can also induce a heightened sense of a client’s “body map”, as Blakeslee and Blakeslee (2007) state as the “inherent sense of your body’s position and motion in space”.

Videogames and virtual reality will change the way people experience their bodies in relation to another in space. Videogames give the player their natural body as their form to allow for the body schema.

Discussion

Originally, the researcher thought that she would find more items in the app that would represent a safe space. The researcher found objects of comfortability, such as couches, as well as non-playable characters that visit the campsite that interacted with them. Fisher (1999) states “The message for the patient is a simple one: no recovery from trauma is possible without attending to issues of safety, care for the self, reparative connections to other human beings, and a renewed faith in the universe”. As stated by Franco (2016), narrative therapy can be coupled with videogames when people complete quests in games to reflect what they would do in real life to help reflect the story of their real life issues. In figure 1, I established my character as an idealized version of me. I found that being creative within the game and decorating my space could be seen as a safe place, so it wasn’t about objects but the action of doing tasks within the game that created the safe place.

Conclusion

The researcher directed a self study using a mobile videogame application, Animal Crossing Pocket Camp, to test if using the app would create a safe place for trauma survivors. As found in the research, there are many types of therapies that can be used to treat PTSD, such as trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy and EMDR therapy. Videogames and digital technology have been found to be successful in therapies, including art therapy initiatives. Virtual Reality therapy was used in treating war veterans with PTSD. In the researcher’s study, the researcher found that the application used was difficult to find objects within the game that could be used for a safe place, but by doing actions and collecting items within the game and the creative aspect itself helped create the safe space.