Virtual Reality for Exposure Therapy

Since its invention, virtual reality (VR) reached high level of maturity and thus many application areas opened. During last decade, there were performed many studies focused on use of VR in mental health care, in particular in the therapy of specific phobias. In the paper, we describe design and development of a VR application for the VR exposure therapy of specific phobias, agoraphobia and social phobias. The VR application is completed with a biofeedback system. The developed system was first tested with volunteers recruited from personnel of the National Institute of Mental Health. Currently a clinical study is being performed. First results confirm the feasibility of the VR exposure therapy application in phobic participants. In addition, the VR flexibility in development of new scenarios shows potential advantage over other approaches to the therapy.