Robert Mackey’s article in The New York Times, “The Iraq War Is Not Taking Place,” discusses new forms of virtual therapy being used to treat Iraq War veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This new therapy is innovative and is done with the therapists conducting a virtual reality that is controlled by a tablet like device. The solider or patient being treated wears headphones, and goggles and the therapist slowly introduces and simulates war using his tablet-based interface, activating or removing the sounds of gunshots or the sight of smoke, depending on a patient’s reaction. The idea of the therapy is “to re-introduce the patients to the experiences that triggered the trauma, gradually, until the memory no longer incapacitates them.”
This brings up the ideas of French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, who famously claimed that the “gulf war did not take place.” This therapy used and the idea that the Iraq War isn’t taking place is similar to one of Baudrillard’s better known theories that postulates that we live in a world where simulated feelings and experiences have replaced the real thing. This seductive “hyperreality,” we live in where shopping malls, amusement parks and mass-produced images from the news, television shows and films dominate, is drained of authenticity and meaning. So, what better way to compare this therapy to this theory right? Maybe, although the therapy could be useful to getting soldiers to deal with their feelings and confront their PTSD, maybe this virtual reality could really offer breakthroughs for them that traditional therapy wouldn’t offer. However, in reading the explanation of how this simulation works, it seems as though this is nothing more than a video game, youtube-like video that the patient is watching or participating in.
This kind of therapy also blurs the lines between reality and unreality, and makes us aware of our “misunderstandings,” as Baudrillard would say, that we have about life in general and ideas like this type of virtual therapy. Mackey states that the NPR report on this project concludes with the observation that: “early results from trials suggest virtual reality therapy is uniquely suited to a generation raised on video games. The gaming aspect of the treatment also helps to lessen the stigma associated with getting therapy.” Although it is true that this type of therapy may be “uniquely suited to a generation raised on video games,” it doesn’t mean that it is the right way. Isn’t there the common idea that video games are not good for kids and expose them to things like violence and death way to early while the play video games like “Call of Duty,” “Grand Theft Auto”? Although the soldiers are “of age” for this type of “game,” shouldn’t we ask the larger question that they are at first so tainted and stressed by war to the point of them getting PTSD that they shouldn’t be exposed to this type of virtual reality as “therapy”?
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