|
|
Anxiety Management Clinic
|
Anxiety Management Clinic
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
- Biofeedback
- Virtual Reality Therapy.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Biofeedback
Virtual Reality
Virtual reality (VR) offers a new human-computer interaction paradigm in which users are no longer simply external observers of images on a computer screen but are active participants within a computer-generated three-dimensional virtual world. Virtual environments differ from traditional displays in that the user experiences a sense of presence or immersion in the virtual environment.
The sense of immersion is achieved by an integration of real-time computer graphics, body tracking devices, visual displays, spatial audio and possibly other sensory input. The user is presented with a computer-generated virtual world that changes in a natural way with head and body motion. In some applications, the user can also interact in other ways with objects in this virtual world. For example, in our fear of heights therapy system, the user has a virtual hand that corresponds to the position and orientation of their physical hand. This hand can be used to push buttons that control a virtual elevator. The most common approach to the creation of a virtual environment is to outfit the user in a head-mounted display (HMD).
Head-mounted displays consist of one or more display screens, along with some type of display optics and a head-tracking device. The head-tracking device provides head orientation and/or location orientation information to a computer that renders visual images on the display screen of the HMD consistent with the direction in which the user is looking within the virtual environment. The system may also provide spatial audio information to the user via stereo headphones.
Advantages of Therapy Virtual Reality Exposure (VRE) Therapy involve exposing the patient to a virtual environment containing the feared stimulus in place of taking the patient into a real environment or having the patient imagine the stimulus. Virtual reality exposure has the advantages of conducting time-consuming exposure therapy without leaving the therapist's office, with more control over exposure stimuli, and less exposure of the patient to possible harm or embarrassment. Thus, it may offer a time and cost effective manner to conduct exposure therapy, with implications for the treatment of many disorders, especially anxiety disorders.
The following sections describe those phobias for which virtual reality protocols have been or are being developed.
- Fear of Flying
- Public Speaking
- Fear of Interviews
- Fear of Storms
- Fear of Heights
- Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (Iraq and Afghanistan)
|
|
|
