For many living with PTSD or complex PTSD, there are two leading yet quiet and relentless questions:
- What if they had truly felt what I felt?
- Would they still have done it?
It isn’t about revenge. It’s about justice that prevents, not justice that destroys. It’s about making sure no one else has to carry the same weight you do.
That question is the foundation of P.E.T., or Psychosensory Empathy Training.
I began developing P.E.T. seven years ago, entirely on paper. At the time, virtual reality and haptic biofeedback weren’t even in my vocabulary. The idea of letting an offender safely and measurably step into their victim’s perspective was something most people only imagined in theory—or tossed around in “eye-for-an-eye” social media posts.
Today, the technology finally exists to match the precision this work demands. And it changes everything.
P.E.T. is not punishment disguised as therapy. It’s not humiliation, shaming, or yet another class that offenders can sit through and forget. Those tactics often backfire, turning victims into props and reinforcing the very denial that fuels harm. Instead, P.E.T. uses trauma-informed VR simulations—paired with live biometric feedback—to create controlled experiences that trigger genuine, measurable empathy responses.
When the brain believes it is experiencing something, it encodes it as a lived event. That’s why trauma imprints so deeply. P.E.T. uses the same neurological mechanism in reverse: pairing an offender’s harmful actions with a direct, embodied awareness of their impact, while reinforcing non-harmful behavioral choices and rewiring emotional responses where empathy is missing.
For survivors, the promise is twofold.
- First, it prevents future harm without risking another real victim. There is no survivor testimony, no reenactment of personal stories, and no exposure of the innocent to further harm.
- Second, it offers courts and rehabilitation programs a way to measure genuine change.
Every simulation is tracked for real-time physiological data—heart rate, breath patterns, skin conductance—markers that cannot be faked over time. The program adapts to each participant’s responses, closing the gap where cycles of cruelty thrive.
Whether the harm was inflicted on a child, partner, animal, or other vulnerable target, the absence of empathy is the constant. That is the gap P.E.T. was designed to close—before another person inherits the flashbacks, hypervigilance, and long-term costs of someone else’s lack of conscience.
Though I hold multiple degrees in forensic disciplines, my qualifications are not only academic. I have lived the reality of being victimized. That personal experience, combined with decades of field work in forensic psychology, criminology, trauma therapy, and true crime case consulting, shaped the foundation of my near 40-year career. I have analyzed offenders to uncover cognitive and emotional patterns, and trained police, court officials, and clinicians on the psychology of offenders. I have also spent years with victims—listening, witnessing the weight they carry, and seeing how rarely systems demand genuine empathy from those who caused the harm.
P.E.T. was born from that gap. Now that technology can finally meet its requirements, we can build it exactly as intended: immersive, measurable, and adaptable for both juvenile and adult justice systems.
For survivors, the idea of an abuser truly feeling what they caused is both validating and bittersweet. Nothing erases the past. But forcing offenders to confront a tangible experience of their impact delivers something current systems cannot. It turns “you’ll never understand” into “now you have to.”
P.E.T. isn’t a theory. It is a fully engineered plan, grounded in neuroscience, behavioral profiling, and trauma-informed practice. It is built to work in the real world without causing further harm. And it exists because survivors should not bear the full cost while offenders remain unchanged.
👉For more information on how we can prevent more victimization together, please text PETVR to 707070 or visit https://www.pledge.to/PET-psychosensory-empathy-training
Photo by Shawn Day on Unsplash
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Dr. Mozelle Martin is a retired trauma therapist and former Clinical Director of a trauma center, with extensive experience in forensic psychology, criminology, and applied ethics. A survivor of childhood and young adulthood trauma, Dr. Martin has dedicated decades to understanding the psychological and ethical complexities of trauma, crime, and accountability. Her career began as a volunteer in a women’s domestic violence shelter as a hospital advocate, later becoming a Police Crisis Therapist working alongside law enforcement on the streets of Phoenix. She went on to earn an AS in Psychology, a BS in Forensic Psychology, an MA in Criminology, and a PhD in Applied Ethics, ultimately working extensively in forensic mental health—providing psychological assessments, crisis intervention, and rehabilitative support within prisons and jails. Dr. Martin is also pursuing advanced legal studies at ASU Law, focusing on internet/cyber-defamation and constitutional law to advocate for stronger protections against targeted professional attacks online. A published author and lifelong student of life, she continues to explore the intersections of forensic science, mental health, and ethical accountability in both historical and modern contexts.
