Virtual Reality (VR) looks like something that will eventually develop into one of those weird growth pod-type things that Neo is hooked up to at the start of The Matrix.
The technology isn’t quite there yet (thankfully) – mostly because people can’t wear it for more than 15 minutes without feeling a little sick – but the software is definitely getting to the stage where a virtual world can be seamlessly given to our visual and auditory senses to create a new immersive environment.
It’s moved into the commercial scene relatively recently with entry level gear being available from quite a few companies – mostly in the gaming world – I wrote about this recently on my own blog.
This useful suspension of disbelief has meant that a number of practical and creative uses for it have started to be developed in the field of treatment and therapy. It’s been used in the realm of surgery in training for laparoscopic skills, and also operationalised to allow streaming of surgeries live from a 360-degree angle.
However, only in the last few years has this new technology been explored for use in the field of mental health.
Can virtual reality (‘In Virtuo’ exposure) provide a pragmatic and cost-effective solution to overcome distress, or will it pale to insignificance in comparison to ‘in vivo’ (‘real’ human) interaction?
Enter a new study published recently in the British Journal of Psychiatry by Bouchard and colleagues: Virtual reality compared with in vivo exposure in the treatment of social anxiety disorder: a three-arm randomised controlled trial.
This three-arm randomised control trial aimed to help alleviate Social Anxiety Disorder; the typical treatment for which is gradual social exposure to overcome the fear of humiliation and judgement during social interaction.
Treatment is often conducted in a group setting, and therefore a number of practical challenges are often faced: therapy runs the risk of being less individualised, conducting group exposure therapy may be quite practically challenging for the therapist, and patients feel a lack of privacy during sessions.
The idea behind this study was to see if simulating social environments would be as effective as the standard therapy in vivo and thereby providing a pragmatic solution to the issue of privacy, while also enabling therapy to be contained in a single controlled space, as opposed to having to go to outside to different locations.