Virtual reality: an experiential tool for clinical psychology

ABSTRACT Several Virtual Reality (VR) applications for the understanding, assessment and treatment of mental health problems have been developed in the last 15 years. Typically, in VR the patient learns to manipulate problematic situations related to his/her problem. In fact, VR can be described as an advanced form of human–computer interface that is able to induce a feeling of ‘presence’ in the computer-generated world experienced by the user. This feature transforms VR in an ‘empowering environment’, a sheltered setting where patients can start to explore and act without feeling threatened. With such assurance, they can freely explore, experiment, feel, live out and experience feelings and/or thoughts. The paper presents the current state of clinical research in this area. Furthermore, the open source ‘NeuroVR’ system and its potential clinical applications are presented and discussed.

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