The Application of Virtual Reality Technology to Exposure Treatment of Patients with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder

As a new technology developed in recent years, virtual reality technology (VRT) has been widely used in medical treatment, business, education and other fields due to its immersion, interaction, imagination and other characteristics with the continuous improvement of technical level and the reduction of the price of virtual reality (VR) equipment. At present, VRT has broad application prospects in the medical field, especially in psychotherapy. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental disorder. Usually, it is a condition of persistent mental and emotional stress occurring as a result of injury or severe psychological shock. Positive intervention and induction are the key to treatment and prevention of PTSD. As one of cognitive-behavioural therapy, exposure therapy (ET) is the most common and effective psychotherapy for PTSD. However, such traditional psychotherapy is difficult to meet the needs of modern treatment, and the application of VRT--virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET), has become an emerging treatment method for PTSD, showing a real, controllable and acceptable unique advantages. Its procedures and psychological mechanism meet the requirements of PTSD exposure therapy, and speed up the process of psychotherapy.