VIRTUAL REALITY OF PHOBIAS

Virtual Reality of phobias

Virtual Reality of phobias

Virtual reality (VR) is a powerful technique that uses computer representations to transform people's sense of presence, so that they feel themselves to be in a virtual environment rather their current one. This presence-transforming function enables people's environments to be precisely manipulated in a way that is not possible in the psychological laboratory or the everyday world. Some applications of VR to psychological therapy have recently been reported (e.g., Carlin, Hoffman & Weghorst, 1997), but the field is still relatively new and undeveloped. Virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) is an evolving technique that has attracted a lot of interdisciplinary research. VRET is the result of a close collaboration between researchers and practitioners of significantly different disciplines, among others, psychiatry, clinical psychology, psychotherapy, computer science, graphics design, human-computer interaction, and engineering. It has been shown that VRET is effective for patients with acrophobia, arachnophobia (spider phobia) and fear of flying (Emmelkamp et al, 2004). The effectiveness of VRET in other anxiety disorders like claustrophobia, fear of public speaking, fear of driving, posttraumatic stress disorder, and agoraphobia also holds promise for the future (Emmelkamp et al, 2004). At Delft University of Technology, in collaboration with department clinical psychology of University of Amsterdam, a generic system for treatment of phobia has been developed, taking into account a usercentered design process and specific human-computer interaction issues (Carlin, et. al 2003). Traditional cognitive behavioural therapy has been taken as the main paradigm to be supported by technology in different ways, by providing interactive immersive worlds to “play” the treatment process in virtual reality instead of in vivo, as in the behavioural approach or by imagination, as in the cognitive framework. It has proved to be the case that patients are very sensitive to specific multimodal [i.e. more senses involved] stimuli in the virtual world (Krijn et al, 2004a). Medium-level resolution and graphics quality has proven sufficient in many cases to trigger the specific phobia-related reactions that are essential in exposure therapy. The effect of locomotion technique on fear is studied in (Kessler et. al. 2001). In one study (Krijn et al, 2004b), treatment using a standard head-mounted display (HMD) gave the same results for the treatment of acrophobia as a CAVE (computer automatic virtual environment) system providing advanced virtual reality systems. Of course this substitutability may be dependent on the specific type of disorder to be treated. It is proven in many studies that VRET can achieve the same results as traditional cognitive behavioural therapy, but will not outperform it (Emmelkamp 2005). VRET is conducted like any other form of graded exposure therapy. Patients are exposed to those stimuli that elicit fear. To give patients a gradual and optimal exposure treatment, patients have to rate their anxiety regularly during the exposure session by means of subjective units of discomfort (SUDS; 0-10 or 0-100). The therapist's comments are roughly similar with what would be expected for conventional in vivo exposure. In general, patients are instructed during treatment to ...