Welcome to the Games for Emotional and Mental Health (GEMH) Lab! We are committed to meeting young people in the digital playgrounds they have chosen to inhabit and providing choices that delight and empower youth while also training emotional resilience skills.
Research
We are a research and development lab that aims to establish the scientific foundations for effective mental health games. We empirically validate our games with rigorous research designs, we share our data publicly, and publish our results regardless of outcomes. We are also committed to developing a theoretical framework and new methodologies that stipulate how to use games to experimentally test theories of psychological change.
Design
Our international partners include developmental psychologists, neuroscientists, veteran game developers, and artists whose objective is to harness the power of play to transform children's emotional lives. We co-design game experiences based on empirically validated principles, together with clinicians, parents and children themselves.
Updates Go to Update Overview
-
top update
Over $1.6 million awarded to GEMH Lab by TWCF
Nastasia Griffioen - 19-05-2022As the Games for Emotional and Mental Health Lab enters a new era of transitions and changes, we are extremely excited to announce that the Templeton World Charity Foundation has awarded us with over $1.6 million to share our knowledge with like-minded individuals!
-
top update
Upcoming event: GEMH Game Gallery!
GEMH Lab - 21-03-2022This summer the GEMH lab is organizing a games festival! With this event we want to enable anyone and everyone to experience some highlights of the current games-for-wellbeing landscape. In the run-up to the event we will provide updates about the specific date, location, and program.
-
top update
GEMH Session #4 - Breaking out of the ivory tower ft. Dr. Rachel Kowert
GEMH Lab - 21-03-2022We had a blast during our 4th GEMH session where we talked with Dr. Rachel Kowert about escaping the ivory tower and sharing scientific knowledge about games with a broader audience. You can watch the recording now on Youtube.
-
Dr. Scholten in All in the Game Podcast 'How games can make you more resilient in life'
GEMH Lab - 08-03-2022GEMH-lab's Dr. Hanneke Scholten was a main guest on the BNR 'All in the Game' podcast to talk about how games can positively influence our daily lives.
-
NRC Newspaper Article "A game that teaches you how to breathe when anxious"
GEMH Lab - 08-03-2022Dr. Joanneke Weerdmeester and game designer Niki Smit were interviewed by national Dutch newspaper NRC to talk about the development and research behind DEEP; a VR biofeedback game designed to help alleviate anxiety. The interview was featured in 2-page spread in the physical newspaper as well as in an online article.
-
GEMH Lab Recommends #1
GEMH Lab - 09-02-2022In this series we want to highlight some of the games that we are playing within the GEMH Lab or that we find interesting from a mental health perspective. These games will be compiled in a masterlist that will be linked back to in each upcoming blog.
-
Video: "Breathing and Biofeedback: Can a VR game help with anxiety management?"
Joanneke Weerdmeester - 09-02-2022The Radboud University featured a short video where Dr. Joanneke Weerdmeester talks about her doctoral research around biofeedback games and anxiety regulation.
-
VICE Benelux: Why it's hard to stop playing games
Nastasia Griffioen - 02-02-2022Recently I gave an interview with VICE Benelux about some of the psychological mechanisms that underlie completionism in gaming.
-
First game ever approved as treatment against ADHD
Hanneke Scholten - 17-06-2020Akili Interactive’s game EndeavorRx is the first game approved by the FDA to be prescribed as treatment for children with ADHD in the US. What does this mean for other games developed to improve emotional and mental health and change behavior?
Events View all events
-
16SeptemberAbout the event
Neurodiversity and Games
LocationR-Building, University of Antwerp
Ken Koontz joins a panel discussion about "Critical perspectives on the therapeutic potential of videogames" at the Neurodiversity and Games Symposium.
Latest Projects View all projects
-
Project Lead Category Project StatusNastasia Griffioen Social Media Recruitment
XCAVO: Realigning Your Digital Life
About the projectDigital media are designed to serve many different functions: socialising, working, building relationships, as well as playing and being entertained. In this project, we seek to understand the impact of different features of digital media, and help youth align what they value and love with what they do on digital platforms, in order to increase wellbeing and coherent identity development.
-
Project Lead Category Project StatusAbele Michela Behavior Regulation Writing Dissertation
DUST: Decisions Under Stress Training - A Biofeedback Training in Virtual Reality for police officers
About the projectThe work of a police officer can be seen as an evolutionary paradox: in places and situations where most people would fall prey to survival instincts of self-preservation, police officers ought to act calm, with proportionality and benevolence. This is why police officers need to train control over their responses to threat as much as possible. To enable this, we develop a virtual training environment with real-time biofeedback. We combine virtual reality and biofeedback to create a personalized, realistic training experience, while honing state-of-the-art technology and psychophysical theory.
-
Project Lead Category Project StatusAniek Wols Resilience Writing Dissertation
Nonspecific Factors in Video Games for Mental Health
About the projectMore and more games are designed to promote mental health. If these games are found to be effective, it is important to investigate which factors are responsible for the improvements in mental health. Most often, this type of research focuses on the specific clinical techniques that were designed into the game. However, from the clinical literature it is known that, for instance, expectations, motivation, and one’s mindset about the malleability of symptoms play a major role in positive intervention outcomes. In my project I aim to investigate these nonspecific factors and examine how we can manipulate these factors in order to optimize video games for mental health.