We should utilize VR to create more widespread mental health care because it produces a platform for radically transforming the treatment of psychological disorders, like PTSD, Social Anxiety Disorder, and phobias. This is made possible through the development of virtual reality exposure therapy(VRET), telehealth-based VRET, and sensory rooms.
VR has specialized in treating psychological disorders through exposing patients to specific environments that are hard to design or those that provide a milestone for patient treatment. One example of providing a milestone for patient treatment is through treating phobias through exposure therapy with slow and controlled steps(Using Virtual Reality Therapy for Phobias). Exposure therapy aims at gradually exposing patients to feared stimuli paired with a safe and relaxing environment with a trained therapist. This type of therapy allows patients to sit in a comfortable chair while they put on the VR goggles. The simulation is surreal in that it provides the patient inside the environment visually and audibly. Exposure therapy can have its benefits, including providing the possibility for humans to overcome their fears rather than having to live with it for their whole life (Using Virtual Reality Therapy for Phobias).
As such, it is nearly impossible for someone with acrophobia to look over a 40 meter cliff in real life, but with the steps of exposure therapy, patients could work through the different cliff heights to gradually overcome their fear without having to encounter the impossibility of standing atop of a tall cliff and possibly falling off of it. In other words, exposure therapy helps patients experience and overcome their fears without having to experience as much emotional and physical danger. In the case that the patient experiences trauma, they could simply take the headset off or the therapist could just stop the program. Oftentimes, sessions can be customized and repeated for the patient’s own benefit. Exposure Therapy also saves time and energy for the patients, as they wouldn’t need to travel to and discover certain places to meet their fears of cliffs or airplanes or public speaking. According to Science Direct, virtual reality research has shown that VRET produces better outcomes than imaginary therapy, and yielded data that VRET provides promising treatment of PTSD and social anxiety disorders. It can be suggested that the fears in exposure therapy are not the same as fears in reality: however, the it has been shown by the Science Direct that virtual reality sound effects and visuals provide an experience for patients invokes the emotional effects inside the patients and provides patients with an environment that seems too surreal to be false.
Even though some may say that VR is not absolute reality, so it cannot be used to treat conditions that exist in the physical world, according to the Frontier article, the virtual reality world is as real as the physical world, as it can achieve the same status as a physical world, but just with added possibilities. According to Frontier, “The kid in the inner city can slip on the telepresence hardware and talk to young people in China or Russia. And have flirtations with kids in Japan. In other words, to me there is something wonderfully democratic about cyberspace. If it’s virtual you can be anyone, and you can be anything this time around.” Basically, VR is a surreal environment in which you could basically go beyond the possibilities of a physical world and become anybody at any place with sensory simulations. You’d be able to put yourself in any sensory environment possible, and this is realism–being able to experience the simulations and life of the VR world. Personally, I can tell you that being in a virtual environment is real because it stimulated the way I sense and perceive the simulations inside the VR world and allowed me to interact and live in it through not just pressing a couple of buttons but putting my thoughts and feelings into the world I lived in.
Virtual reality Exposure Therapy can be implemented through telepathy, forming what is known as telehealth-based virtual reality exposure therapy. Teletherapy, the approach of connecting patients with doctors through digital platforms, has been a revolutionizing means of democratizing access to healthcare. Telehealth-based VRET expands access to mental health care, as there is a growing demand for mental health services that cannot be met through traditional in-person therapy alone, and can be cheaply implemented to help more patients build greater connections with therapists than in the physical world.
Telehealth-based VRET can be implemented through people’s homes and has led to convenience through enjoying the flow of treatment with less handling of multiple in-person devices but rather through online video chatting, online assessments, and a VR headset. This is expected to reach exposure therapy to connect greater numbers of patients in remote areas and allow patients to share their thoughts and feelings through their own setting to make stronger connections. It can be said that remote mental health treatments can create separation between patients and doctors, but this simply is not true, as according to NCBI, the National Center of Biotechnology Information, VRET through teletherapy provided patients with greater connections with therapists than in a hospital setting. In teletherapy, they were both able to view each other’s homes and get to know each other’s environments and interests better. For example, a therapist usually left her door closed during therapy sessions, but one time she forgot about it, and a dog ended up appearing in her room, which the client owned too, thus forming the bond between them.
Another method of virtual reality that has revolutionized mental health treatment are VR sensory rooms known as Evenness, which is an avenue to address sensory interventions for patients who deal with sensory disabilities.
These rooms help patients with sensory processing difficulties, which are a symptom of those with ADHD and those with Autism, and can also help ease depression for patients. Sensory difficulties affect community engagement, learning, adaptive functioning, and poor health, and there is a lack of support towards people with these limitations. Evenness sensory space helps reduce anxiety through stimulating specific senses through color, fiber optics, lighting, and sound. Some examples of Evenness are stimulating through virtual reality visual effects, auditory inputs like dimmed music, and tactile inputs like auditory messengers. The study done by Caroline J. Mills, Danielle Tracey, Ryan Kiddle & Robert Gorkin with patients of intellectual disabilities and/or autism involved having patients using Evenness for 6 times over the 5 month period, for a total average usage time of 26 minutes and 7 seconds being inside the head-mounted VR device and involved visuals (interactive light panels, light curtains, and lava lamp), auditory (music), and tough experience (vibration and massage). Results done by a study on the virtual reality sensory rooms for adults with disabilities showed a significant reduction in the score of depression for participants who had severe depression symptoms(intervention depression score(GDS-LD) of above 13). The GDS-ID levels of patients who were depressed at the beginning of the study went from 16 to 9.86, with a cut-off level of 13 being categorized as depressed. The level of anxiety of the group in the experiment that had both autism and intellectual disabilities went from 22 GAS-ID to 16.25 GAS-ID, with a GAS-ID level of 13 and above as having anxiety disorder. During my personal VR experience at studio-X, many students and I had claimed that they experienced a lot of uncertainty while being in the VR space–from not knowing what boundary was part of the VR simulation to whether or not the VR world was the reality–it can be simply not true, as sensory rooms, unlike the often chaotic and violent video games at studio-X, provides patients with greater amounts of assurance and peace while reducing anxiousness.
In conclusion, virtual reality has revolutionized mental health treatments through virtual reality exposure therapy(VRET), telehealth-based VRET, and sensory rooms. Virtual reality has created a platform where people can safely treat phobias in their comfortable living space and reduce the stigma associated with seeing doctors. With the development of sensory rooms, treating anxiety and depression has been easier than ever!
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