virtual reality exposure therapy

[Childdoconeday]

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Hello,

Is anyone familiar with using vR headsets for exposure therapy for specific phobias? I have been googling and haven't come across too many companies except for psious,but I haven't been able to read any reviews. Does anyone have experience with psious or another VR service?

Thanks!

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

I don't know what is currently commercially available for VR headsets and treatments, but there is/was 1-2 research groups out west doing research surrounding VR and PTSD treatment. This was about 6-7 years ago, so YMMV. I know Dr. (Skip) Rizzo developed some software for treatment, though I'm not sure what ever became of that. He's out of USC. I also think there is a lab in the UC system that was doing similar work. The latter I believe presented at a Div 22/Rehab Psych mid-winter conference, which is where I learned about VR and PTSD research efforts....this would have been in the past 5-6 years.

This may also be of interest to you. The full article is available to download online for free:

Bell, I. H., Nicholas, J., Alvarez-Jimenez, M., Thompson, A., & Valmaggia, L. (2020). Virtual reality as a clinical tool in mental health research and practice
. Dialogues in clinical neuroscience, 22(2), 169–177. Virtual reality as a clinical tool in mental health research and practice - PubMed.

 

[MCParent]

No one has vr headsets, everyone has a smart phone with a good camera. Hard to program an entire scenario in ce, easy to add stimuli to existing environment in augmented reality. Treatment will be using augmented reality not vr, is my prediction. Way more feasible. Already lots of work on this.

 

[tr]

These guys had been using a commercially available HTC-VIVE gaming headset. Not sure if that is still their current setup.

Virtual Reality and Immersive Technology (VR-IT) Clinic

med.stanford.edu

Stanford VRIT | Virtual Reality & Immersive Technology Program