Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET)

Do you suffer from the inability to extinguish anxiety, panic, or certain behaviors when exposed to certain situations, animals, or do certain situations, sounds or sights trigger you to have a negative reaction? Are you very sensitive to a specific situation or environment, or do you have a phobia which is interrupting your everyday life?

If you are currently struggling with intense anxiety or phobias, you may be interested in beginning a futuristic treatment using Virtual Reality (VR) technology in therapy. Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) is quite a new approach to treatment that mimics traditional exposure therapy without the need to place yourself into the feared of anxiety inducing situation in real life. Virtual reality therapy is designed to help you build resiliency skill sets and coping skills to mitigate your negative reactions to certain situations, sights, sounds, or triggers in a safe environment.

How does Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy Work?

When you use virtual reality in counseling, the goal is to work on your cognitive-behavioral reactions and processes that trigger anxiety, panic, and inability to cope in certain situations. This type of therapy is called Exposure therapy. Exposure therapy is meant to help you understand your reactions, your fears, anxiety, and panic.

Virtual Reality exposure therapy works by desensitizing you or familiarizing you with thoughts, feelings, events, pictures, places, situations, or even animals/creatures that you currently are struggling to cope with. VRET allows you to navigate fears and anxiety inducing situations while remaining assured that you are in a safe space where you can end the exposure at any point if needed.

There are many different types of exposure therapies, but they all include you working directly with your counselor. All of these therapies provide a different way for you to be exposed to your fear or trigger event/situation, to best learn how you can better cope with these situations.

The major types of Virtual Reality exposure therapies include:

• Prolonged Exposure Therapy – when you are exposed to a situation that you have previously avoided.
• In-vivo Exposure Therapy – this type includes:
• Flooding – where you are exposed to the element of distress in full, and while your therapist helps you cope in the moment.
• Systematic desensitization – when you build a hierarchy of situations from lowest anxiety to highest anxiety, and you are exposed to each rank from lowest to highest difficulty.
• Exposure and Response Therapy – a type of feedback-based exposure therapy, in which you are exposed (in VR) to the trigger, and you learn by your experiences of being exposed to your trigger, in a therapeutic environment, how to balance your thoughts, behaviors, and reactions.
• Interoceptive Exposure Therapy – a type of therapy that focuses on the sensations that you often experience, associated with the panic, anxiety, or bodily-processes that you feel when you are exposed to your fear.

Often the type of Virtual Reality exposure therapy may depend on your needs, comfort level, and the severity of your fears/anxiety. Virtual reality exposure therapy has been known to be more effective than “imagining your fear,” and VR allows a 3-D computer-simulated experience that is identical to real-life but excludes any genuine danger. VRET can be particularly effective in helping reduce anxiety and panic associated with anxiety disorders or social anxiety, phobias, and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

This type of therapy takes advantage of technology and provides you access to a simulated, controlled, therapeutic setting, to help you prepare for life, which can be less stressful than traditional exposure therapy. Virtual reality exposure therapy offers you a futuristic approach to building cognitive-behavioral skills.

If you’re interested in getting started with VRET for you or a loved one, reach out to us to get started on your first appointment.