Wil je? VilDu?! a therapeutic tool for sexual abused children
Channel: Menno Deen
Date: 22/11/2016

More than a third of women and more than a tenth of men are subjected to sexual violence (Yancey, Hansen & Naufel, 2011). Less than 10 percent is reported (Leventhal, 2001). This is especially true for younger victims. Main inhibitors of disclosure are related to fear, shame, and self-blame. Additionally, the lack of language to describe the event or events is a common barrier (Hunter, 2010) amongst sexually abused children. For this young victims, it is hard to talk about abuse, which may hinder the development of coping strategies, and thus, healing after the traumatic experience. That is why therapists try to create an atmosphere that corresponds victim’s preferred way of communication that is save and fitting for the child. One of these communicational practices is play.

Play provides children with the live, dynamic, and an individual language indispensable for the expression of children's subjective feelings for which collective language alone is inadequate (Piaget, 1951). This is one of the reasons that play therapy can help victims of sexual abuse. Play can lower barriers to describe experiences in non-verbal manners. This is especially true for non-directive child-centered play therapy. Here, children are in control, within some gently but firmly set limits (Smiths, 2010). Most playful interventions in therapy sessions are analogue systems. They use pen and paper, physical role-play props and sometimes a digital text processor. There are surprisingly few digital interventions that facilitate conversations about sexual abuse. 

Existing digital tools about love, sex and romance, targeting children, can be characterized by their restrictive gameplay and one-directional communicative practice. 

Furthermore, they mainly target adolescents and adults. As such, they may not resonate with younger children’s believes and experiences. What’s more, they are rather textual oriented, using culturally depicted phrases and words. Both might not connect well to children. 

In the rare cases where developers do target children, these developers appear to obscure the content of the game with a metaphor. For example, Child Safety Research & Innovation Center developed Sydney Safe-Seeker and the Incredible Journey Home. In the game, children are taught to recognize sexual predator. 

Quiet literarily, the sexual predators in Sidney Safe-Seeker graphically represent animals that are known predators. Although metaphors are commonly used in psychotherapy to position the issue within a frame of reference that connects to the client, we felt that the anthropomorphist characters of Sidney Safe-Seeker were a bridge to far. 

With our game we wish to present children with a voice, without the need to talk. Furthermore, we want to put them in charge of their story. What does and does not happen is driven by the individual’s normative structures and values associated with love, sex and romance, not by external norms as happens in most above mentioned applications. 

VilDu? (working title) was developed during the Lyst-Summit Game Jam in June 2014. Gamers worked together with a therapist for sexually abused children and a victim of sexual abuse. The game was based on an existing therapy tool and targeted issues that concern boundary settings. In the traditional therapy tool, clients draw themselves on a big piece of paper. With color markers they depict whether and where they want to be touched. VilDu? enriches this activity with a social component, interactivity and the opportunity to limit someone else’s actions. 

VilDu? is a sexual-exploration-game for children that focuses upon depicting one's boundaries. It tries to acknowledge that sex can be fun and at the same time that it is ‘ok’ to set boundaries. VilDu? is a two player game presenting players with the opportunity to explore their natural curiosity to sex in a safe environment. In the game, players can perform various sexual actions upon other players and themselves by tapping and sliding over tablet. Icons depict the acts of looking, touching, un-clothing, kissing, grabbing and licking. Players can unlock these acts step by step. If the other player does not appreciate a particular act, he/she can hit the stop button. The stop button clearly communicates the boundaries of the other player and locks a sexual act on the partner's device. As a result, saying ‘stop’ or ‘no’ does not depict the end of a fun exploration, it merely states: ‘I don’t want this, but I do want other things…