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Virtual reality, or VR, has started to dominate the video game market by offering more and more realistic content and playing on our emotions (VR is very effective for horror games) . Researchers have investigated this phenomenon and developed an application in virtual reality that aims to help people suffering from fear of emptiness.
AND IF WE COULD HEAL OUR FEARS?
View a Professional for the treatment of any phobia costs a lot of money and requires a real investment in the long term. These consultations are so expensive that many people can not see a psychiatrist and therefore not be cured of a phobia that can become disabling everyday. A psychiatrist from the Salpêtrière and a computer scientist from CNRS looked into the fear of the void, a phobia that can range from the fear of climbing to the top of a building to panic fear of getting on a stool. As a means of treatment, they thought about the use of virtual reality.
Virtual Reality, or VR, allows you to immerse the user in a digital world so that they feel part of of this universe and can evolve there. Their application is called My Reve and allows, gradually, to fight against his fear of emptiness in full autonomy but with the help of a psychiatrist to guide them all the same through the different processes to which they will be confronted.
With My Reve, virtual reality is the ally of the psychiatrist to help patients overcome their phobias like fear of emptiness or claustrophobia (here, in the Paris metro) # Virtuality2018 [19659008] pic.twitter.com/OaLSFFYNvU
– Sarah Sermondadaz (@datisdaz) 8 February 2018
THE VR AS A NEW PSYCHIATRE
But progress does not stop there. Indeed, researchers at Oxford University decided to go even further in the development of this kind of applications by going as far as to make the intervention of a psychiatrist optional, even useless. Their study, which they published this month, gathered 100 patients with vertigo. These people have been separated into two groups randomly, one who will have access to the treatment through the VR application and the other who will not undergo any therapy. The experiment lasted 2 weeks during which the patients carried out 6 sessions of 30 minutes with the application. Before they started, they had completed a questionnaire rating their phobia on a scale of 16 to 80. Just after the two weeks, these people retested the test and the results were convincing. Those who received VR therapy saw their score drop by an average of 20 points while the others did not change. The results are the same two weeks later.
This application was developed in 6 months with the collaboration of psychologists, programmers, actors and writers, its operation is simple and asks the user to proceed the ascent of a tower in several stages. The goal of the researchers is ultimately to replace the intervention of psychiatrists to treat the most common phobias. However, it is still in its infancy and this type of virtual therapy lacks comparison with conventional therapy. A study that will surely be done in the years to come.
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