Could Playing Tetris Become A New Treatment For PTSD?

I was reading an interesting study from Oxford University the other day that reported that people who have PTSD and play Tetris have fewer flashbacks. I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and this makes perfect sense to me. I think these guys are on to something.

The study involved 20 people who did not have PTSD. They were shown a violent movie and then divided into three groups. One group did nothing, one group played Tetris, and one group played a trivia game. The results were quite amazing. The group that did nothing experienced an average of 12 involuntary flashbacks. The group that played the trivia game experienced an average of 6 flashbacks. The group that played Tetris experienced an average of 4 flashbacks. Imagine having PTSD and being able to overcome or lessen your flashbacks by playing Tetris.

This makes solid sense to me as one of the recognized and highly effective treatments for post traumatic Stress Disorder is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, or (EMDR). EMDR is an information processing therapy that involves proper clinical evaluation and training of coping skills. You should never try to do EMDR alone or with someone other that a therapist. It’s very harmful to do that to yourself.

The similarity is that memories or thoughts are processed as the therapist directs the patient’s eyes to move back and forth. Rapid eye movement combined with other physical stimuli and the awareness of memory and sensation are the keys to getting the brain to categorize fragmented memories and sensations. As I said, do not do this by yourself.

 People who have PTSD typically have intrusive thoughts and fragmented memories surface when engaging in repetitive tasks. The researchers at Oxford report that playing Tetris, planning how the blocks will fall and watching them fall into an organized pattern may be just as beneficial as doing EMDR therapy.

If you are in therapy, why not talk to your therapist about this theory and see if he or she thinks that there is sound logic behind this? I know that I intend to talk to mine about it.

Is it possible that a very effective Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Treatment can be found in the form of a Nintendo game? It is starting to look that way. The research and theory is certainly solid enough. If playing Tetris will lessen a PTSD symptom like experiencing involuntary flashbacks, I think the guys at Oxford have hit a home run.