Virtual Reality Therapy: The Future of Mental Health Treatment

“Virtual Reality in Therapy” sounds like a bizarre match, doesn’t it? Well as astonishing and new as it sounds, it is surprisingly equally effective in mental health aid. Virtual reality (VR) allows you to experience a life-like existence in a computer-generated environment. The digital environment setting is expressed through a head-mounted display. By setting up a realistic VR environment through this headset, clinicians help patients experience situations that will further help in the diagnosis and treatment of the respective disorder.

Virtual Reality Therapy for Treatment of PTSD and Phobia:

Let’s begin this topic with a statement of pure experience given by one of the clinical psychologists testing VR effects in therapy: “One thing I have learnt from VR, is that it is straightforward to fool the brain." Is it, really? Well, the use of VR in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) justifies this statement, as it has had a great impact on treatment and the positive development of the patient’s mental state. But how does this happen? With the use of VR, patients are encouraged to go ahead and confront the stimuli that have caused PTSD, while a clinician is present there to note and observe the effect VR has on the behavioural patterns of the patient. As the patient is describing their experience, the clinician has a control panel where they can manipulate the time of the day, the ambient sound, and all the elements reminiscent of that patient of their trauma experience. The effect of VR in the treatment of phobia is also worth mentioning. According to clinicians, “the idea is built on the fact that someone is deeply afraid of something, and the best way to treat them is to gradually expose them to their fright. Over time, their fear will get less intense or even go away.” This can be explained through the example of Dexter Thomas (news correspondent), an adult patient with a fear of heights. He was taken through different VR set-ups, and the intensity of the fear of heights kept increasing with every change in the situation. This was controlled by the clinician in practice. Dexter claimed that even though the scenario was virtual and not a real experience, the symptoms faced by him were quite similar. He was placed on a narrow bridge swinging high from the ground and was left there for a few moments to reflect on what he was actually feeling. He described experiencing an impulse to jump, which was the root cause of why he didn’t trust himself in such situations. Facing his fear along with being safe helped him take one step ahead to gaining more confidence over his impulses and losing his fear of heights. The psychiatrist performing the treatment predicted that a few months of VR sessions could help him diminish his phobia.

Effect of Virtual Reality in Anxiety Treatment and Art Therapy:

VR treatment in therapy refuses to end its limits here; its effects in anxiety treatment as well suggested ground-breaking, constructive ideas we can count on. For instance, a virtual-reality conference set-up is posed in front of a patient with social anxiety. Some aspects of the set-up are manipulated, such as the audience may change from being happy, resilient, and calm listeners to offended, angry, or restless attendees. Practising such situations may help erase the fear of social anxiety in real life, a considerably brilliant idea. Yet another mind-boggling invention is the use of VR in art therapy. In one of his TED talks, Brian Boyle (technologist) neatly explains how they make VR work in art therapy for intellectually or physically impaired patients. For the very first step, baseline imagery is created to build up the virtual world. They further proceed to cut up the patient’s artwork and formulate it into 3D programs. This includes adding motion, lighting, animation, and music effects to make it an immersive and rich media experience for them. Fantastic, is it not? It increases their engagement in therapy sessions with better visual and auditory factors, which stimulate their creative flow, encouraging them to express themselves through different mediums of sensory contact. This helps them portray their feelings in a deeper and more relatable manner.

Criticisms regarding Virtual Reality:

It is through profound research and accessibility to the advanced digital world today that VR is entering the field of therapy with impressive success rates for the treatment of mental illnesses. Nevertheless, criticisms of such a form of treatment also prevail among people. The immersive nature of VR can cause both mental and physical side effects, often known as ‘cybersickness’. Vertigo, motion sickness, eyestrain, headache, and dizziness can easily build up due to the frequent use of VR headsets. Although VR may seem like a self-help tool, it is really a tool programmed for clinicians to extend their skills. This is because while VR may help to create a very close sensory replica of the traumatic situation a patient has witnessed, it is still only an established clinician who can actually control the effects of VR during treatment hours and help correlate the behavioural changes with further treatment measures. A review by a layman who used VR as a self-help technique said “I know this from experience, suffering PTSD and depression for many years, getting involved with the ‘Battlefield 3 VR game,’ which involves very highly detailed graphics to include realistic chaos of battle, helicopters, armours, and so on. My dream state became a horrible mixture of real to unreal experiences.” This terrifying example of using VR as a self-help technique clearly justifies that it is purely a tool for the clinician to use. Loss of touch with reality by getting addicted to the digital world and spending chunks of time mindlessly using the device for games and videos are very likely to cause identity crises, isolation, social anxiety, and depression. While practitioners working on PTSD have confidently commented, “VR helps the patients to face their demons, but if they can hang in there and get through it, their condition gets better.” the sensitivity of the mental illnesses and vivid experience of VR may cause 'retraumatization’, which may worsen their condition. The cost of VR headsets in turn causes VR therapy to be expensive. This may attract less of the masses, considering it is a digital approach, which may not seem natural for many patients.

Conclusion:

VR therapy can be considered a double-sided sword, but new methods and research are about keeping an open mind and studying various possibilities until the ideal fit for the problem is acquired. With practice in the virtual world under the guidance of an established therapist, people can experience self-development in a safe space without harming their mental well-being by directly practising in the real world. People who are too afraid to face reality with their condition and accept their fate of suffering throughout their lives also gain hope by trying out this technique. Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) can be seen as a well-established approach for the future of mental health treatment, easing the treatment process for the practitioners and implementing better lives and enhanced mental well-being within the masses.

References:

ABC News. (2016, October 1). Treating PTSD with Virtual Reality therapy: A way to heal trauma [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCCWH_CNjM0

TEDx Talks. (2019, October 22). VR Therapy: Unlocking the Potential of VR | Brian Boyle | TEDxProvidence [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxd-ppIDfjw

VICE News. (2018, January 26). Therapists Are Using VR Headsets To Cure Phobias (HBO) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMttQHMjbJo

BBC News. (2017, December 2). Could virtual reality help treat anxiety? - BBC News [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7tY07QY66A