With technology progressing beyond belief daily, it was only a question of time when something like virtual reality therapy would happen.
This is one of the greatest advancements of 21st-century technology and everyone should know about it.
In this article you will learn what exactly virtual reality therapy is and all the ways to use it.
Virtual reality was very well known a long time before VR headsets came to the scene. Before these headsets became a thing, virtual reality was mostly used to refer to computers and the Internet.
Virtual reality was anything related to computer based reality, games, videos, songs, and much more, were and still somehow are virtual reality.
Nowadays, you will mostly hear about more complex things being related to virtual reality.
Virtual reality can be plainly explained as artificial reality. Something technology made to seem as real as reality. It seems confusing but it is honestly pretty easy to understand when you come in contact with.
Technology was a huge ally to all kinds of therapeutic methods from its very beginning. Many things became much easier and more approachable by the sole existence of technology, while some of the things were unimaginable without it.
Today’s virtual reality doesn’t lack in such areas. Virtual reality has had game-changing results in therapy of many different disorders and conditions.
What exactly is virtual reality therapy?
There are several accurate answers to this question. Treating any kind of conditions, disorders or illnesses with the help of digital technology is VR therapy.
Using a digital environment to create or recreate certain situations and tests for therapeutic purposes is VR therapy.
Virtual reality therapy is something that is still in progress and will continue to be for as long as technology continues to grow and develop. However, despite the fact that it constantly brings something new and fresh, virtual reality has shown itself very useful in treating a certain number of conditions and disorders. Constant improvement and progress towards better results is what made virtual reality a constant in therapy methods.
The interesting thing is that all of these conditions are widely known and very well researched and there are new facts being found every single day, therefore, knowing all the necessary and vital facts about these conditions made it much easier to connect with virtual reality and to make virtual reality adaptable to the needs of those with these conditions and disorders. Some of the conditions and disorders in which VR has shown significant improvement in therapy are the following:
PTSD and Virtual Reality Therapy
PTSD is short for post-traumatic stress disorder. This is a mental health condition that is triggered by a certain traumatic event a person has experienced. It can happen immediately after the event or years later.
Some of the symptoms are severe anxiety, nightmares, and flashbacks. Another symptom is constant thinking about the event and reliving it. Being more in the past and rethinking what happened, rather than focusing on the present and acknowledging the problem. PTSD is often a cause of depression and suicidal thoughts.
Person with PTSD will not want to talk about what happened to them, will not see any point in asking for help, won’t see the possible ways to resolve their problem, won’t be able to clearly see that there is a future for them, and will be unable to normally function due to the constant stress, flashbacks, nightmares, and etc.
Post-traumatic stress disorder commonly happens to the patients who survived catastrophic accidents, physical or sexual abuse, being threatened by a weapon, war survivors, kidnapping survivors and any other kind of life-threatening or simply extreme events. Basically anything that is extreme for you and your body can be a trigger for PTSD.
PTSD is something that is treated and is treatable. This disorder has come a long way, but there have been big improvements in therapy over the years. One of those improvements is virtual reality therapy.
How can VR therapy help PTSD?
People with PTSD need to process the whole event and realize what exactly triggers the negative feelings. Reliving the event is often necessary so that professional medical personnel can see the severity and extent of the disorder. This is often very hard since these patients refuse to talk or think about it when asked to.
One of the ways to do this is with VR. There are many different programs, interactive games, and similar software that will significantly help the personnel with treating this disorder. Patients are able to process PTSD through the virtual world and when ready, maybe even relieve the situation in the virtual world. This is mainly the goal of virtual reality therapy. Recreating the similar situation in which patients would be able to act differently or see what they didn’t see and understand what happened.
Virtual reality therapy is something that has become very useful and ordinary in treating PTSD. It continues to grow and expand daily.
Autism and Virtual Reality Therapy
Autism is a developmental disorder. Autism is often characterized by difficulties in communication and general social interaction, followed by repetitive behavior and restricted interests. This disorder is often noted in the first three years of a child and symptoms develop gradually by aging.
Causes are said to be mostly genetic and from environmental factors. There are certain health conditions and drug abuse during pregnancy that are connected to autism later.
Autism mostly affects the transportation of information to the brain. This seems to be the biggest issue that triggers all the other symptoms.
There have been some controversies over the years about autism being connected to the certain vaccine, but those controversies were proven wrong. However, there are still a number of people who doubt this and think it is mainly vaccinating children at a wrong time that causes autism. There are many speculations, but medicine tells differently.
Autism is often treated with behavioral and speech therapy, and psychotropic medication. Sadly, prognosis for this disorder is mostly and frequently poor, but there should never be a place for discouragement. Every case is different and if treated thoroughly and constantly, people with autism can greatly improve their social skills and interaction with others.
How do people with autism benefit from virtual reality therapy?
VR therapy is something that was quite innovative and useful for patients with autism. Interactive programs, developing games, and other learning programs have shown very well when treating this disorder.
Patients with autism are able to dive into the virtual world, maybe even create their own, where they feel most relieved to share their problems and express them. Many of these programs are made so that they help these patients to develop consciousness about the social world and how to interact with them.
Virtual reality therapy has shown excellent results for autism. It is far from curing it, but it helps in a way nothing else helped before.
Autism patients who tried VR therapy greatly improved their social interaction and all their social skills, and are able not only to better recognize, but also to express their feelings in a better way.
Another amazing thing about VR therapy is that it is constantly progressing and improving its tactics. Technology world is in constant progress, therefore we will be learning more about the virtual world for sure.
Mental illnesses and Virtual Reality Therapy
Sadly, nowadays there are too many mental illnesses lurking everywhere. When spoken about mental illnesses, it is often referred to depression, personality disorder, anxiety disorder, eating disorder, panic disorder and many others.
Each and every one of the mental illnesses has its own symptoms, and they are often connected with one another.
Depression is the most common one and symptoms are very tricky. People with depression can act totally normal, so nobody realizes they are suffering, but they really are suffering on the inside. These people are often of low self-esteem, can’t seem to see the real picture, they see no exit to their current situation or whatever brought the depression, and they often think about suicide.
People with mental illnesses need professional help because these conditions don’t just go away if you try to forget about them. Mental illnesses are something most people are dealing with, but are afraid to admit so, for many different reasons, some of which are being made fun or generally misunderstood.
Depression and anxiety often go hand in hand and they can lead to eating disorders or even developing personality disorders. This is something that needs to be addressed seriously.
Realizing that you or somebody close to you has a problem of such sorts is number one in treating it. The next one is seeking help and not being opposed to it.
There are many different ways of treating these disorders and they are mostly treated all at once if there are multiple.
How does VR therapy help people with mental illness?
Virtual reality therapy also found its way towards treating these types of disorders. Not only is it significant for therapy purposes, but also for diagnostician. We can safely say that diagnostician of mental illnesses is what VR helps the most with.
Through the different programs, doctors are able to determine which mental issues a person is dealing with and therefore help them. Sometimes patients know something is happening to them, they don’t quite know what is the problem, but they want it gone. VR therapy is very useful in these situations, because professional personnel can determine what is happening through the patient’s interaction with the VR test they put them through.
Another problem with mental illnesses is that patients often refuse to accept they have any problems, so VR therapy is what can help once again.
OCD and VR Therapy
OCD stands short for obsessive-compulsive disorder.
OCD means a person has uncontrollable thoughts or obsessions and behaviors or compulsions that they feel the utmost need to perform and repeat over and over.
This disorder is something that is slow developing, but long-lasting. People are often unaware of this condition until it progresses and worsens.
These obsessions and compulsions are often something very ordinary and simple. It can be washing hands, checking the lock on the door, counting numbers, hoarding things, etc. These are just some of the examples, but it can become really anything.
What makes this into a disorder is the impossibility to stop or to think rationally about it. This is something that gradually inserts itself into a person’s life until it becomes an obsession. It has a huge impact on affected people’s life and they can’t function normally.
This disorder is often connected to anxiety disorder and even suicidal thoughts.
This is another disorder where affected people don’t feel like there is a solution for their problem and they often feel like they will be judged and ridiculed for it.
What they must know is that they need to seek help and that it is natural to do so. Nobody who has any issues with dealing with anything in their life should be quiet. Quite the contrary, they should speak about it and seek professional help. There is nothing to be ashamed of.
How can VR therapy help people with OCD?
Like for most other disorders, virtual reality therapy consists of facing your fears and dealing with them. Something VR gives us is basically what it says it is and that is virtual reality. Life, computer-based, situations that are distinctively made so that people with OCD can deal with their issues and reduce their obsessions and compulsions. The key to this kind of therapy is finding out the source of the problem or the fear and eliminating it by dealing with it and accepting that you have a problem.
Social anxiety
Social anxiety is a very common disorder nowadays. What is it? This basically means that a person feels anxiety and fear when interacting socially. They basically dread the sole thought of being socially active and they fear and mostly avoid crowded places.
People with social anxiety can often have panic attacks when needed to socially interact.
Some of the symptoms are trembling, sweating, nausea, dizziness, hypertension, and etc. These are the same symptoms people experience when dealing with something they feared. Even instant paralysis can be one of the symptoms.
Something like social anxiety can really impact a person’s life and make everything harder for them. These people often feel anxious when they have to talk to anybody and they are limited in sharing their thoughts and showing their emotions.
Somebody with social anxiety should seek help the moment they realize they are having this type of issue. This is something that will be easier if treated right away, rather than later on.
Social interaction is something every human being needs and being afraid of it will greatly impact other aspects of a person’s life.
How can VR therapy help ease Social Anxiety?
Virtual reality therapy can greatly change a person’s perspective at certain things, social interaction being one of those. Specially made and composed programs that make people with social anxiety interact in different ways can entirely cure social anxiety.
Gradually involving people in virtual social interactions can really help with this disorder. Slowly they will learn to let go of the fear and they will overcome the anxiety and stress social interaction produces.
Statistics have shown remarkable results when including VR therapy for social anxiety patients.
Stress
Stress is something everyone has experienced and it can be said that this is the number one condition people have in today’s world.
Stress is a feeling of emotional tension. Sometimes stress brings a positive outcome, if it makes people do something they were due to do or react a certain way that has a positive outcome, but mostly stress is a negative feeling.
People get stressed daily over many different things. These things are often work, money or health-related, even though really anything can be a source of stress.
Dealing with stress is something people often forget to do and they tuck away their stress, piling it up somewhere until they burst. Stress can lead to different mental disorders, anxiety and depression being number one.
Addressing your problem and accepting that you are stressed is just the beginning of dealing and solving a problem. Getting rid of stress is the goal.
The problem nowadays is that stress has become like a second skin to most people and it is something people rather live with than try to address and resolve.
Stress often comes out of some sort of insecurity or fear. These are the things you should find out before you can stop being stressed. The solution is often as simple as eliminating the cause of the stress.
How can VR therapy help with Stress?
People often don’t know why they are even stressed, either because they constantly have that feeling or they just simply don’t see anything bad about their life, but they are still feeling stressed.
Virtual reality is something that is once again used for diagnostication of the origins of somebody’s stress. Is it either fear or something else, a virtual reality therapy program will be able to detect it and help professional medical personnel in finding out the best way to eliminate the stress.
Sometimes, there is no deep reason and cause to somebody’s stress and they just had their daily cup overfilled, so what then?
VR therapy has this also covered. Playing a VR game, interacting in a virtual world can easily help people put their mind somewhere else and relax just for a bit. From time to time it is okay to run to the virtual world and just exist there for a little while. However, if you feel like your problem is more deep than just a simple overfilled daily cup, please don’t be shy or afraid to seek professional help!
Phobias
There are too many phobias today. Most of them you probably haven’t even heard about. People often like to joke about phobias, but they are something that needs to be spoken seriously about since they can negatively impact a person’s life.
Phobias are a type of anxiety disorder defined by a persistent and often extreme and excessive fear of a situation or an object. The main symptom of phobia is fear since phobia is entirely driven by fear. Anything a fear would cause, phobia will also cause.
There are many groups of phobia, some of the most common ones being: claustrophobia, the fear of being trapped in a closed or too small spaces, for example this particular phobia impacts person’s life greatly in the meaning that they are usually afraid to take elevators, being in crowded spaces, or being in a smaller rooms. Anything can trigger the phobia. Another common phobia is acrophobia, the fear of heights. People with this type of phobia have a fear of being at too high places, they are often terrified of flying in planes (aerophobia) and hiking isn’t their favorite hobby. Thanatophobia represents fear of death, and people experiencing this don’t even want to mention death nor talk about it.
There are too many phobias, basically anything you imagine being scared of, there is surely a phobia related to it.
How can VR therapy help people with Phobias?
Virtual reality does wonders for treating phobias. Not only it helps in diagnosing the phobia someone has, but also in treating and possibly curing it.
People with phobias have fears that get out of control, so grasping the reality is what they need. Finding the right coping system and something that will distract their constant thoughts about something that scares them beyond belief.
Virtual reality is something that can help in finding the proper coping mechanisms and later on even dealing face to face with their biggest fear and ‘defeating’ it.
People with phobias will be able to interact in different tests and programs and improve their condition by working on eliminating it. All this is thanks to the VR therapy. Never before was it possible to recreate virtual situations and let people find a way to deal with certain situations. This is a harmless method of therapy that is constantly improving.
Addiction
Addictions are a mental condition that leaves people addicted to a certain substance or else.
There are many different types of addictions but the most common ones are alcohol, drug, gambling, eating, nicotine etc.
The more this world gives us, the more everything is progressing, there are that much more chances of developing addictions towards these things.
Times have changed and everything is much more available to people, so developing an addiction is nothing taboo or strange.
Addictions become very dangerous in the moment when a person using whatever they are addicted to wants to stop being addicted, but they cannot. They crave this vice more than anything, even when they feel like they want to stop the addiction from ruling their lives.
Rehabilitation and counseling is a standard therapy process. These patients need professional medical help and they need to be under supervision, so they don’t fall back to the vice life. The process is somewhat long and hard, but there are huge chances for a person to stop the circle and to stop being addicted.
How can VR therapy help people with Addiction?
Virtual reality therapy can work as a false vice and people would mentally feel like they are still smoking or drinking, because that is what they are doing in a game.
It can also be helpful to distract people who are trying to get rid of their addiction.
Virtual reality therapy is a good choice for finding proper coping mechanisms and how to defeat cravings.
Placing these types of patients into a virtual world, making certain situations that contain triggering scenes can help the therapist see what they should work on and how the patient’s addiction works.
Virtual reality therapy has shown excellent outcomes when battling and treating addictions. This treatment has proven to be more real and therefore more useful in defeating the conditions.
VR vs IVE
This is an often discussed topic and many people have different opinions, but there are still some things that make one of these two a better option.
Virtual reality can virtually recreate real life situations, while in-vivo exposure therapy doesn’t bring the full persona into the recreation.
VR is more available to many patients who would like a therapist from a different part of the world. So there is also a transportation advantage. This also refers to the patients who are disabled and unable to walk, run, end etc.
Another advantage of VR being virtual and not requiring patient and therapist in-vivo visits is the lack of possibility of abusing this relationship in any way. Being separated miles away, but still having your regular sessions is a huge advantage. This usually means the world to the kidnapping survivors or rape survivors who have issues with PTSD or similar. They surely wouldn’t feel comfortable enough being in a closed space with a stranger, no matter that the stranger is professional medical personnel, trained to help them. We all know about different stories where these situations got out of hand. However, VR therapy helps these patients feel much more safe.
One of the best advantages is that VR is not monotone or dull, as opposed to the in-vivo exposure therapy. VR therapy can be implemented through playing games or simulation programs, which will surely be more interesting and motivational to the patients. This mostly refers to patients with autism, but also to every other type of patient.
Being motivated is one of the key points of treatment and a good way towards better results and even a complete recovery.
Another huge advantage is the possibility of finding other people with the same kind of conditions and reaching out to them for support. This is another important part and a milestone towards recovery. Realizing that you are not the only person experiencing whatever you are experiencing helps a lot with coping and accepting. Many people like to stay in touch and report progress, maybe even talk about what helped the other person and learning new coping systems. It is really important not to feel like the only ‘broken’ person in the world and to see that there are many others and that you can even help others in realizing or dealing with different disorders and conditions. This mostly helps patients who think they are weird for having that condition.
Is there a future for VR therapy?
Having learned that VR therapy is something well developed and integrated into therapy of so many disorders and conditions, there must be a question: is there space for more development and expansion? Is there really something else we could possibly learn about VR therapy?
There is a simple answer and that is, YES!
There is always room for improvement, especially when speaking about therapy methods. There can always be something new for this field of technology and this is only the beginning.
Not only can software be greatly improved, but also the hardware part.
There can never be enough programs, interactive games, and tests for these purposes.
Also, sadly, there are newly found conditions or symptoms everyday, so upgrading and developing new programs is essential for the existence of virtual reality therapy.
Conclusion
Virtual world is still expanding and progressing. However, this doesn’t mean that the already existing technologies that give us the possibility of making anything virtual seem real are not enough.
Virtual reality is basically synthetically made reality. It means copying certain situations and making them virtually.
Virtual reality therapy is also something that is still growing, but somehow it has already shown great purpose and remarkably innovative solutions to many medical conditions and disorders.
Being able to recreate certain ‘trigger’ situations is of great importance when treating many different conditions.
Not only is the treatment much easier using VR, but also diagnostician. Sometimes certain situations trigger certain phobias or disorders, but people don’t know how to explain what is happening to them.
Using VR is going to help in diagnostician.
There are many types of conditions and disorders, but what connects them is the possibility to treat them using virtual reality.
VR therapy mostly consists of making patients realize the extent of their condition, learning different coping mechanisms and confronting the issue face to face.
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