The 6 advantages of Virtual Reality therapy

The techniques and strategies used in psychotherapy to help patients have evolved a lot throughout the decades.

Part of this phenomenon is due to scientific research carried out at this time, which has shed light on the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of different ways of treating patients; but it is also simply due to the fact that the development of new technologies has made it possible to create therapeutic resources that were inconceivable until not so long ago.

The case of Virtual Reality used in psychotherapy is an example of this: Today, it is possible to take advantage of computing to generate therapeutic “training environments” that do not exist in the real world, but only in the digital world. Here we will see what are the main advantages of this form of psychological intervention.

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What is virtual reality?

Virtual Reality is a technological resource developed to generate real-looking digital environments, and can be used for a wide variety of purposes. For example, it is used both in leisure products such as video games, as well as in training programs, or in the case that concerns us here, psychological therapy, among other modes of use.

So that, Virtual Reality makes it possible to take advantage of the potential of new technologies to design fictitious but very realistic places, without the restrictions imposed by the economy (that is, without the need to build these environments with physical material) and by the laws of nature. From this it follows that through Virtual Reality it is possible to generate events, objects and beings that cannot occur in the real world; However, in many cases the exact opposite is sought, to develop situations that are very similar to what could happen to us on Planet Earth today.

On the other hand, Virtual Reality is usually associated with complementary materials that facilitate immersion in these fictitious worlds, the most popular being Virtual Reality glasses. These serve so that the entire field of vision of the person using this technology is occupied by what happens in that artificially designed setting, so that you forget about the stimuli that belong to the world real.

What are the advantages of Virtual Reality applied to psychotherapy?

As we have seen, Virtual Reality is not a technology created by itself to help problems with psychological problems; However, precisely because it is very adaptable and is not limited to a single type of objective, it is the base from which resources are developed that are designed for psychotherapy.

That is why Virtual Reality is used to develop tools designed to treat patients, especially in relation to the management of emotions and the treatment of anxiety problems. In such cases, three-dimensional and very realistic virtual environments are designed through which the user can move and interact with the elements, Whether they are stimuli that trigger phobic reactions, work-related situations that produce stress, places that induce a state of relaxation, etc.

Below you can see a summary about what are the main advantages it offers in the field of psychotherapy.

1. Adapts to various types of psychological problems

As Virtual Reality is a very adaptable digital environment in terms of what it allows to recreate and program, its use does not have to be limited to the treatment of very specific psychopathologies. With relatively little effort, resources can be created for a wide variety of problems, and even recycle part of the material for many types of patients.

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2. It allows to create not only environments, but also complete situations

Virtual reality it is not limited to generating environments understood as static places that exist within a software: they also include events, sequences of actions made by artificial entities in those places (for example, the flight equipment of an airplane) or that are triggered when the user performs certain actions.

3. Offers more privacy than live exposure

How Virtual Reality can be used without leaving a room, offers more privacy than other intervention modalities in which you have to go to places where the real stimulus is Before which the patient must learn to manage her emotions, and which in many cases usually consist of public spaces in view of other people.

4. Gives much greater control over variables

In procedures based on exposure to real environments, it is impossible to control everything. However, in Virtual Reality it is very easy to control such relevant variables as the weather, brightness, noise, the size of the stimulus to be exposed, etc.

5. Allows you to create a scale of difficulty

This is one of the advantages of Virtual Reality-based therapy that is associated with the previous point, that is, the control of variables. Thanks to the fact that everything in this environment can be adjusted to a specific purpose, it is very easy to generate situations adapted to the degree of progress of the user, so that at all times you face activities that pose a challenge but that do not exceed your capabilities or lead you to get discouraged and throw in the towel.

6. It is associated with a lower cost

Compared to the use of elements typical of real world environments, Virtual Reality entails less costs: There is no need to travel, it is not necessary to have co-therapists to help, it is not necessary to buy or rent physical items specific to that intervention, etc.

Bibliographic references:

• Maples-Keller, J.L.; Bunnell, B.E.; Kim, S.J.; Rothbaum, B.O. (2018). The use of virtual reality technology in the treatment of anxiety and other psychiatric disorders. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 25 (3): 103-113.
• North. M.M.; North, S.M.; Coble, J.R. (1997). Virtual reality therapy: an effective treatment for psychological disorders. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 44: pp. 59 - 70.
• Park, M.J.; Kim, D.J.; Lee, U. Na, E.J.; Jeon, H.J. (2019). A Literature Overview of Virtual Reality (VR) in Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders: Recent Advances and Limitations, Frontiers in Psychiatry, 10: 505.