Zoophobia Self-Therapy Application Using Graduated Exposure Therapy Method And Augmented Reality

Zoophobia is a severe anxiety disorder that develops when a person experiences anxiety and fear around specific animals. One method to control fear is Graduated Exposure. In its application, Graduated Exposure needs to be accompanied by a psychologist who provides exposure material as a stimulus for the sufferer's fear. The purpose of this research is to build an android-based application that implements exposure therapy as an alternative self-help therapy to control the fear of zoophobia patients. This application combines the use of augmented reality technology to replace real animals with 3D objects as a therapy stimulus, as well as a smart band as a user's heart rate measuring device during therapy. The results of testing the black-box method show that the functional system built is as expected. While beta testing, the results obtained 88.89% strongly agree that the utilization of zoophobia therapy using mobile applications can help reduce fear, 86.67% strongly agree that exposure therapy using mobile applications provides the same experience as direct exposure, 75.56% agree that the use of 3D objects can replace real animals as a fear stimulus, 75.56% agree that interacting with the intermediary of augmented reality technology provides the same fear.