Over the last few years, the number of terrorist attacks has increased and the media is continuously broadcasting violent images. The army is present in the streets and in public places. The government strengthens security measures. All these factors play an important role in the feeling of insecurity. For this reason, phobias such as agoraphobia can be expected to increase. Against this background, phobia’s treatment has become a public health issue. One of the psychological therapies to cure phobias is virtual reality. The present paper, based on the article written by Lambrey and his colleagues (2011), deals with virtual reality and its effects on phobias.
First, what are phobias?
A phobia is defined as an irrational fear of an object. Most of the time the patient uses an object avoidance strategy. According to the Skinnerian movement, avoidance reinforces this fear. Therefore, distress increases in the presence of the phobic object. To address this phenomenon, scientists created exposure therapy. This therapy confronts the patient with anxiety-provoking situation. At the beginning, less anxiety-provoking situations are presented in order to accustom the patient and bring anxiety down. The psychologist will go to the next stage only if the patient feels less stressed during the initial situations. Then, exposure level increases progressively. There are two types of exposure: imagination and in vivo. For the imaginative situation, patients are asked to imagine a scene. This technique is effective but limited because it is not scientifically controllable. On the other side the in vivo situation is very effective but difficult to implement, for example for fear of flying.
In this context, a new exposure situation emerged. Virtual reality is a computer program that takes someone into a three-dimension world. The helmet, which allows this feeling of reality, presents two main characteristics. First of all, two screens are used to display images, which allow a stereoscopic vision. Secondly, sensors receive the head’s movements and transcribe them to adapt the virtual environment in real time. Virtual reality compensates limits of imaginative exposure therapies. Indeed, some people have difficulties in mental imagery. Thanks to this technology, the therapist can have control over exposition’s factors. Furthermore, some patients are less reluctant to immerse themselves into a virtual environment than in vivo. Based on this new interest, researchers have sought to quantify virtual reality effects. In recent years, several studies were done and showed a clinical improvement for some phobic disorders by comparing before and after treatment. Studies comparing in vivo exposure and virtual reality exposure concluded with a similar effect of both methods.
To conclude, virtual reality seems to be interesting to treat phobic disorders. This method can be applied to others situations: cognitive rehabilitation, posttraumatic stress disorders. It is necessary to mention a few limitations about patient’s comfort (nausea, vomiting) and about the generalization of the improvement to the daily environment of the patients.
Bibliography
Lambrey, S., Jouvent, R., Allilaire, J. F., & Pélissolo, A. (2010). Les thérapies utilisant la réalité virtuelle dans les troubles phobiques. Annales Médico-psychologiques, revue psychiatrique.168(1), 44-46.
PIAU Clémentine, RECALDE Laura, BASTARD Camille
