The power of psychotherapy with virtual reality

Virtual reality therapy is one of the most innovative resources used by psychologists. This does not mean that its main benefits are not known, in fact, more than twenty years of research on this technological resource have demonstrated its multiple uses in the field of psychology.

Especially used for phobias and other anxiety disorders, virtual reality therapy is presented as a very useful tool. useful as it is adaptable to all kinds of psychological problems, offers privacy and is economical compared to other modalities of psychotherapy.

let's talk about why virtual reality therapy is useful, highlighting in which disorders it is widely used and the benefits it entails.

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What is the potential of virtual reality therapy?

Virtual Reality (VR) is a technological resource used to generate digital environments with a very realistic appearance, which allows it to be used with a wide variety of objectives. The first thing that comes to mind when we talk about VR is that it is used as a form of entertainment and leisure, although it is also very recurrent in military and aeronautical training. But it is especially useful in psychological therapy given some of its characteristics.

VR makes it possible to design highly realistic fictional locations, without the restrictions imposed by nature and economics (for example, physical and material limitations). This is why with her it is possible to generate events, objects and beings that cannot occur in the real world. However, in psychological therapy, what interests us in Virtual Reality is to replicate environments that are as similar as possible to those that a patient could face in real life.

Added to this, it is also worth noting that VR is usually accompanied by complementary materials that increase the degree of immersion in these artificial environments, the best known being Virtual Reality glasses, such as the Oculus Rift or the HTC IT LIVES. These devices serve so that the entire field of vision of the subject who uses them is occupied by what happens in the virtual environment, generating such a degree of immersion that for a few minutes the person forgets about the real world.

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Main utilities of virtual reality therapy

There are several benefits that Virtual Reality brings to psychotherapy. These advantages have been widely demonstrated thanks to the fact that virtual reality therapy has more than twenty years of research, and with each passing year, technology is improved in terms of immersion and interaction, which has a positive impact on the psychotherapy.

Mostly, this modality of psychotherapy is based on exposure therapy, where the patient is exposed to a phobic element more and more and with greater intensity, and the therapy in guided imagery, in which the patient is asked to imagine a certain environment, both phobic and another type. With virtual reality, instead of having to ask the patient to imagine something or put them in a real phobic situation directly, they are enters a controlled environment, artificial but realistic, a place where the psychotherapist is in control and makes sure that nothing gets out evil.

There are several reasons why virtual reality therapy is useful. Among them we highlight the following.

1. Adaptable to various psychological problems

Virtual Reality is a very adaptable tool, allowing to recreate and program environments at the will of the psychotherapist and depending on the needs of the patient. Thus, its use does not have to be limited to the treatment of specific psychological disorders and problems. With little effort, you can create resources for many health issues, and take advantage of parts of the environments for other patients.

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2. Allows you to create complex situations

Another utility of virtual reality therapy is that it allows complex situations to be elaborated, such as sequences of actions, events, changes in the environment. Thanks to this tool, situations such as a plane taking off, jumping from a very tall building, entering a dark parking lot, being chased by a spider...

3. Offers a lot of privacy

In live exposure, widely used therapy for phobias, there comes a time when it is necessary for the patient to face his fear realistically. For example, if you are a person with agoraphobia, afraid of large crowds like those in a shopping center, There will come a time when the psychologist will have to take the patient to precisely that place to see how he handles the situation. situation.

Clearly, this is not a private situation and can become very counterproductive, causing the patient to be even more afraid of going there from the embarrassment that you have experienced by feeling exposed to others in full psychotherapy. Virtual reality therapy avoids this loss of privacy because it can be used without leaving a room. It offers more privacy than other types of intervention in which it is necessary to go to a specific place to face the phobic element.

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4. Greater control over variables

In real-world exposure you can't control everything that happens. In contrast, this is not a problem with virtual reality, because by using computer-created environments it is possible to modify them according to the needs of the patient and the stage of psychotherapy. Thus, with this technology it is possible to control things that are so difficult to control in the real world, such as the weather, ambient noise, the size of the stimulus to be exposed...

5. Allows you to create a difficulty scale

And related to the previous point, thanks to the fact that the variables can be controlled, it is also possible to create a hierarchy of difficulty. Everything that appears in the virtual environment can be adjusted to fulfill a certain purpose of therapy, adapted to the degree of progress of the patient and avoid exposing him to situations that exceed his capacities at the time and that lead him to abandon the session.

6. More economical

Compared to other more analog modalities of therapy, Virtual Reality can be seen as cheaper. Creating virtual environments means not having to go to real ones, it is not necessary to buy specific physical elements for a specific intervention and, depending on the occasion, requires less help from co-therapists.

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In what disorders is VR useful?

Virtual Reality is very useful for a wide range of mental disorders. This is especially the case if VR glasses and headphones are used that create the sound environment, so that the patient is deeply involved in the virtual environment and experiences it in the first person. this therapy It is very useful for the following health problems:

• Specific phobias (fear of flying, blood, animals, heights, darkness...)
• Agoraphobia
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
• Social Anxiety Disorder
• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
• alcohol use disorder
• Depression and dysthymia
• Eating Disorders (ED)
• ADHD
• Hypochondria
• Pain distraction: fibromyalgia, cancer patients...

Of all these disorders, it should be noted that virtual reality therapy is especially helpful with specific phobias. Thanks to the fact that they allow the creation of an artificial environment, totally controlled and customizable, it is possible to work in a very effectively the patient's pathological fear of something, such as heights, airplanes, spiders or dogs.

For example, if a person has a fear of heights, the first steps in traditional treatment would be to work on it within the consultation itself, such as showing photographs of airplanes, videos of the interior of an airplane, the sound of takeoff... As in the treatment of all phobias, at some point you have to train in an environment real.

The problem here is that it is not possible to take the patient to that real environment just like that, because for this would have to buy a plane ticket or find another way to have a contact with a plane of truth. Virtual reality solves this by allowing the patient to enter an environment, immersive and interactive, so similar to the of a real plane that will give you the feeling of being in one, but without leaving the safety and comfort of the therapist's office.

This allows to work on the alteration in an effective way, achieving significant improvements by increasing the degree of realism of the plane as the therapy progresses and making the patient feel safe at all times knowing rationally that she is still far from the real environment. Little by little, you will get used to the environment that you previously feared and you will overcome your phobia, or at least the anxiety symptoms will be reduced.

It can also be used to teach and improve the following strategies/tools in the patient:

• Training in relaxation, meditation and mindfulness.
• Training in emotional management
• Training in social and communication skills
• EMDR Training
• Sports training

The psychologist will always be necessary

As much as technology advances, this does not mean that the figure of the psychologist is substitutable in the treatment of mental disorders. Virtual Reality is a truly useful tool for therapy, but if there is no diligence or follow-up, something that a psychologist does, it does not matter how new this technology is. For this reason, it should not be thought that a patient with an anxiety disorder, by the mere fact of have VR and download any "treatment" program, without guidance or structure, go to to get better.

Of course, VR is a tool that we can use for more and more types of disorders and patients, quickly, safely and effectively. There are more and more treatments that can be used with this technology, although the star is still the exposure therapy itself for specific phobias, its usefulness as a tool for relaxation and training in social skills and communicative.

Psychologists who apply virtual reality therapy take advantage of the ability of this technology to generate controlled and measured environments where the amount of details and the degree of immersion and interaction are modifiable, thus increasing realism and consequently interfering in the response that the patient gives to the around. This it is adapted to each person, problem and stage of psychotherapy.

Thus, virtual reality therapy is very useful, with an efficacy backed by twenty years of research, validated every day by practice, adaptable to each person and environment and that allows treating phobias that, in the past, were neither cheap nor fast treat.