Video Games and Healing

Using our imagination to “think” ourselves healthy is a good thing. The only problem is that most adults have a very limited imagination. This is usually because we spend our time with the day to day necessities of life. We have forgotten how to play.

When I watch a child play they are in their own little world. They make up the rules for their play as they go along. They are in control of what happens in their world. Even when faced with a debilitating illness they find a way to play. With encouragement they even use their imagination to be the hero in their own fight to beat their illness.

After being diagnosed with cancer I wanted to do more than just follow doctors orders. I wanted to be at the center of making myself healthy once again. I remembered an old article that I had read many years ago about children that were encouraged to see themselves and their own immune system as heroes. These heroes then would do battle with the disease. The study recognized that the children who had been encouraged to become the heroes in their recovery were quicker to recover than those children who had not been encouraged to be their own heroes.

Knowing that my own thought processes and imagination were hampered by the chemo therapy I decided to use video games to boost my imagination. I found a game where I could create my own character, and become the hero of the game. For every villain, bandit, necromancer, vampire, werewolf, and dragon that I killed it was one more cancer cell that died never to return. I believe that between the chemo therapy and the video game I was able to beat cancer.

In my play through while under going treatment my character is a nord with a two-handed battle ax. This character is now strong enough to knock the legs out from under the opponent before striking them on the head for the death blow. The name of my character is a German word for death.

Video games can be a waste of time, especially if playing them comes before everything else that needs to be done. Yet, when you can't go anywhere, see anyone, or do anything, they are a great escape. When you use it as a supplement to your imagination to beat an illness, no matter what it is, they are a very good thing indeed. The video games help to focus the attention thereby keeping the imagination engaged.