The Use of Vr Technology to Treat Phobias and Other Anxiety Disorders

Introduction to Virtual Reality

Over the past decade, virtual reality has achieved massive breakthroughs, with its usage extending into various fields, such as arts, film production, medicine, video gaming, and even military training. The virtual environment is presented through a head-mounted display (HMD) composed of separate screens for each eye, stereo earphones, and a head-tracking device. Users of the device can navigate freely in the three-dimensional virtual world with a real sense of presence. With the involvement of real-time computer graphics, sounds, smell, and other sensory inputs, virtual reality technology invites and immerses its users into real-world interactive experiences.

The Use of VR Technology to Treat Phobias and Other Anxiety Disorders

Among the multiple fields that have adapted the technology of virtual reality is clinical treatment. A number of VR applications have been developed for the mental health field, including the treatment of anxiety disorders, which are types of health diagnoses characterized by feelings of worry, fear, and anxiety. There are many anxiety disorders, and scientists have found that phobia is the most common one, defined by an intense “fear of situations or objects that actually pose little or no danger.” Patients usually do anything possible to avoid interactions with their phobias, behaving irrationally and unreasonably. Phobias can be divided into three categories: agoraphobia (the fear of open spaces, unfamiliar or uncomfortable environments), social phobia or social anxiety disorder (intense fear manifested by the patient when facing social situations, performing in public, or being part of social settings), and specific phobia. Specific phobia is the kind of unreasonable fear related to exposure to specific objects or situations and can be divided into five sub-categories: animal, natural environment, situational, blood-injection-injury, and other.

Many people believe that phobias cannot be cured and that existing treatments are ineffective, so they don’t even try to seek possible treatments. However, various treatments have been used to treat phobias, and most of them are effective and convenient. The most commonly used treatment is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Basically, what CBT does is guide the patient to view and confront their fear from a different angle and learn to control their feelings and thoughts. Another possible method is suggested after scientists found out that phobias are usually related to particular “fear memories,” which can be disrupted by exposure to a tarantula. However, more research and instructions need to be conducted on this method. Another treatment, exposure therapy, might be the reason why patients want to avoid treatment: they don’t want to confront their fear. However, exposure treatments have been proven to be the most durable method, with the intensity of exposure gradually increasing. For example, from a photo of the object to a video and eventually to the real object, and the whole process is carefully monitored and guided by a therapist.

The Role of VR in Mental Health Applications

For the past several years, technology has been developing at an unprecedentedly rapid pace, making virtual reality an ideal tool for mental health applications. With more research and studies being conducted, computers and VR devices now operate faster than before, create better quality graphics, and the cost of experiments has been significantly reduced. This also proves the effectiveness of virtual reality as a treatment for mental health. What really makes VR intervention stand out among other types of treatments is that it invites patients to a real-life experience that can be modified based on different preferences and needs.

Evidence from Studies on VR Therapy

Various studies have been conducted using VR as a treatment for psychological conditions, and VR interventions have been proven successful for multiple types of phobias, including agoraphobia, social phobia, spider phobia, and fear of heights. Like the exposure approach, VR therapy is also based on the idea of exposure and interaction while preventing potential dangers that might happen in exposure approaches. The fact that VR is controlled by therapists and is designed based on each patient’s needs and feelings makes patients feel safer and more willing to participate and engage actively.

According to an experiment conducted on 12 patients with panic disorder, both VR therapy and imaginal exposure are effective in treating agoraphobia. The researchers divided the patients into three groups: a VR-assisted cognitive therapy group, an imaginal exposure group, and a control group. In the VR therapy, patients were exposed to four situations: in an elevator, a market, a square, and a subway, with the number of people in the crowd controlled by the therapist. The researchers found that both the VR cognitive therapy group and the imaginal exposure group improved their level of fear towards crowds with decreased anxiety, and the VR cognitive therapy group achieved this within a shorter period of time.

In an experiment designed for spider phobia patients, a virtual tarantula was created through VR technology. After the treatment, 23 patients were tested on their improvement. About 83% of the virtual reality treatment group showed low or moderate levels of fear when tarantulas were presented in real life.

To address the anxiety and fear some people have when they are in a social situation, researchers focused on treating public speaking anxiety as an approach to social phobias. In a study conducted on students from public speaking classes, scientists found that the VR treatment group showed significant alleviation in their level of fear after only four treatment sessions that lasted less than 15 minutes.

The first study conducted on VR technology as therapy for patients with height phobia was in 1995. In this experiment, patients in the VR treatment group received seven sessions of VR exposure each week. There were three situations in the experiment: a bridge, a balcony, and a glass elevator, presented to the patients at different levels of difficulty based on their reactions and improvements. The VR treatment group later showed obvious alleviation in anxiety, distress, and fear when they were put in high positions. However, the researchers were not sure if the result was caused by VR or not because the participants also went through in vivo exposure while the research was conducted.

Conclusion

There is no denying that VR technology opens up new possibilities for treating mental disorders and has already yielded promising results. However, some scientists claim that there is no direct and definite proof of VR’s superiority over other treatments. Additionally, some patients might still prefer traditional therapies over VR because they feel uncertain about this newly emerged technology. Therefore, although there are multiple potentials for adopting VR as a therapy for mental disorders and phobias, more research, studies, and clinical experiments need to be conducted to draw conclusions on VR’s effectiveness or advantages over traditional treatments.

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