Virtual reality therapy consists of custom virtual environments that have been carefully designed to support exposure of anxiety disorders. The treatment involves exposing the patient to a virtual environment containing the feared situation rather than taking the patient into the actual environment or having the patient imagine the stimulus. The virtual environment is controlled by the therapist through a computer keyboard ensuring full control of the exposure to the programmed situations. Virtual reality exposure treatment allows the therapist to manipulate situations to best suit the individual patient during a standard therapy hour and within the confines of the therapist's office.
The hardware required would be a 3D Head Mounted Display, Head Tracker and a 3D Controller. The image would be projected into the 3D Head Mounted Display and the head would be tracked in real time with the Head Tracker. The 3D Controller would be used by the patient to move forwards, backwards and side to side in the virtual environment.
We recommend the V-Real Viewer 3D, Z800 or the i-Trek 3D PC as the Head Mounted Display, the MINUTEMAN as the Head Tracker and the Cyberstik 2 as the 3D Controller of choice.
We have provided four free virtual environments for Panic Disorders that you can download and use:
The Virtual Environments (SQUARE, SUPERMARKET, SUBWAY and ELEVATOR) are stored in an *.exe file (SQUARE.exe, SUPERMARKET.exe, SUBWAY.exe and ELEVATOR.exe) and can be downloaded.
1. Close all the other programs running on the PC (strongly recommended).
2. To download the *.exe files, please move the mouse on “SQUARE”, “SUPERMARKET”, “SUBWAY” and “ELEVATOR”, then left click and choose “save". Please save the *.exe file on your PC.
How to Install:
1. Save the file (just downloaded) in a new folder (you can download all the *.exe files of the environments in the same folder).
2. Open the folder in which you have saved the *.exe file and click on it to install the environment and all its components on you PC.
The VR Therapy Program Installation will start immediatly and just follow the instructions.
IMPORTANT: It's better not change the default folder during the installation. All the *.exe files will install the environments in the same VR Therapy Folder.
How to Use:
After the program installation the environment just installed will start automatically.
To run the environment the next time:
1. Make a click on the *.exe file on your Desktop (if you have installed the Square environment you will find a "Square.exe" file on you Desktop (it's a link created automatically by the Program installation).
2. The Program Player will start automatically opening the virtual environment.
Using VR therapy, it is possible for the patient to manage successfully a problematic situation related to his or her disturbance. By creating a synthetic environment in which the patient is likely to feel more secure, VR therapy may enable the patient to express thoughts and feelings that are otherwise too difficult to discuss, thereby increasing the degree of closeness between the patient and therapist.
Using VR therapy in this way, the patient is more likely not only to gain an awareness of his or her need to do something to create change but also to experience a greater sense of personal efficacy. VR therapy can be employed as a supportive technique at the onset of treatment to create an atmosphere in which the patient feels stable, which in turn allows treatment to progress. Alternatively, it may be used in the course of treatment should a crisis occur, enabling the patient to overcome the situation responsible for halting further improvement.
In general,VR therapy can be used throughout treatment to foster a positive therapeutic alliance and as a trigger for a broader empowerment process. In psychological literature, empowerment is considered a multi-faceted construct reflecting the different dimensions of being psychologically enabled, and is conceived of as a positive additive function of the following three dimensions:
Perceived control: This includes beliefs about authority, decision-making skills, availability of resources, and autonomy in the scheduling and performance of work.
Perceived competence: This reflects role-mastery,which, besides requiring the skillful accomplishment of one or more assigned tasks, also requires successful coping with non-routine role-related situations.
Goal internalization: This dimension captures the energizing property of a worthy cause or exciting vision provided by the organizational leadership. VR theraphy is a special, sheltered setting where patients can start to explore and act without feeling threatened.
In this sense, the virtual experience is an “empowering environment” that therapy provides for patients. Nothing the patient fears can “really” happen to him/her in VR therapy. With such assurance, they can freely explore, experiment, feel, live, and experience feelings and/or thoughts. VR therapy thus becomes a very useful intermediate step between the therapist’s office and the real world.
