Virtual Reality against social phobia

A man comes on the scene. He looks anxiously into the room. To the audience that is full of anticipation about what is to come. “Hi, I’m Wim Jansen, and today I want to tell you how I overcome my social fears”, he stutters. His audience nods invitingly and Wim finds the courage to continue. Only Wim is a human being of flesh and blood, and the audience is a computer-controlled projection. Computers that help you become more social? It seems contradictory, but it isn’t.

confrontation therapy

Wim is a test subject in an experiment to treat social anxiety with Virtual Reality. Because social anxiety is a type of phobia, Wim may benefit from confrontation therapy. That is based on the fact that a phobia is learned. You can learn to deal with your fears by putting yourself in the situation that you are afraid of. That goes step by step. If someone is afraid of spiders, it starts with a small house spider. That is very scary, but gradually you get used to it. In the end, the patient even dares to touch the spider without panicking.

Virtual Reality offers a solution for social phobias. With this digital technique, every situation can be staged. A space with spiders, an audience, a mountaintop, a party: the possibilities are endless.

Digital helmet

looks away, everything moves with it. The computer follows you You enter the virtual world by putting a Head Mounted Display on your head. At first glance, this thing looks like a helmet, but inside it has screens for the image and boxes for the sound. If you order you movements and show the corresponding images. When Wim comes up, he can look around and look at the people one by one and see how they react. Conversely, the public also follows him.

Since 1994, Virtual Reality has been used for phobias such as fear of heights and fear of flying. If you have a fear of flying, you can learn to deal with the fear in a flight simulator. It works about the same with a fear of heights, only you are standing on a tower. On top of a virtual tower you can look up at the sky, around you and down. Someone with a fear of heights gets the same complaints as on a real tower. He will sweat and tremble. So he gets scared. Of course nothing else happens and that explains the success of confrontation therapy. The body learns that fear reactions are superfluous and that is why they are not used next time on another tower.

Positive results

But does this also work with social phobia? The first scientific studies are promising. In the United States, researchers treated a group of people with social phobia. There, just like Wim, they had to give a speech several times before a virtual audience. These people have been given a new life. Today they are teachers or managers, jobs that involve dealing with many other people. Before therapy, they did not dare to dream of ever applying for this kind of work.

Future music?

In the Netherlands, too, research is being conducted into whether Virtual Reality works for people with social phobia. Researcher Gero Lange of Radboud University Nijmegen does not find it contradictory that a simulation takes the place of a real audience. Lange explains: “The body seems to take it for real and reacts the same. The body gets used to the situation and the fact that it is not threatening. With repeated confrontation, the physical reaction gradually decreases.”

Lange is currently investigating whether people with social anxiety keep more physical distance from others. If you asked them this, they would say it isn’t. But that can simply be measured in a laboratory. Hopefully his research will contribute to the use of Virtual Reality in confrontation therapy against social phobia in the Netherlands.

Literature:
Anderson, PL, Zimand, E. Hodgesm LF & Rothbaum, BO (2005). Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for public-speaking anxiety using virtual reality for exposure. Depression and Anxiety 22, 156-158