Avatar-Guided Virtual Reality Therapy Found to Reduce Fear of Heights

A brief psychological therapy using virtual reality (VR) can help people overcome their fear of heights, reports a randomized, clinical studypublished this week inThe Lancet Psychiatry. The VR therapy used a digital avatar as the coach; there was no human therapist involved.“Immersive virtual reality therapies that do not need a therapist have the potential to dramatically increase access to psychological interventions,” said lead author Daniel Freeman, Ph.D., of the University of Oxford in a press release. “We need a greater number of skilled therapists, not few er, but to meet the large demand for mental health treatment, we also require powerful technological solutions.”For this study, 100 people with clinically diagnosed fear of heights, or acrophobia, usingDSM-5 criteria were divided into two groups: one participated in the VR coaching program; the other received no treatment. All participants scored higher than 29 on the Heights Interpretation Questionnaire (HIQ), which the researchers considered as the threshold indicating a moderate fear of heights.The VR therapy involved six 30-minute sessions over two weeks. In the first session, the virtual coach provided background information about acrophobia and how to treat it from a cognitive perspective to develop memories of safety that counteract fear associations.The remaining sessions had the participants tour a virtual 10-story office complex and take part in activities to break down their fears while the coach p...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: acrophobia fear of heights Heights Interpretation Questionnaire virtual reality VR Source Type: research