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The Use of Virtual Reality Technology in the Treatment of Anxiety and Other Psychiatric Disorders
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LEARNING OBJECTIVES: After participating in this activity, learners should be better able to:• Evaluate the literature regarding the effectiveness of incorporating virtual reality (VR) in the treatment of psychiatric disorders• Assess the use of exposure-based intervention for anxiety disorders ABSTRACT: Virtual reality (VR) allows users to experience a sense of presence in a computer-generated, three-dimensional environment. Sensory information is delivered through a head-mounted display and specialized interface devices. These devices track head movements so that the movements and images change in a natural way with head motion, allowing for a sense of immersion. VR, which allows for controlled delivery of sensory stimulation via the therapist, is a convenient and cost-effective treatment. This review focuses on the available literature regarding the effectiveness of incorporating VR within the treatment of various psychiatric disorders, with particular attention to exposure-based intervention for anxiety disorders. A systematic literature search was conducted in order to identify studies implementing VR-based treatment for anxiety or other psychiatric disorders. This article reviews the history of the development of VR-based technology and its use within psychiatric treatment, the empirical evidence for VR-based treatment, and the benefits for using VR for psychiatric research and treatment. It also presents recommendations for how to incorporate VR into psychiatric care and discusses future directions for VR-based treatment and clinical research.
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“Experiencing presence when immersed in VR has been reported to be an important factor for the implementation of effective interventions in VR (Maples-Keller et al., 2017).”
From iSenseVR: bringing VR exposure therapy outside the laboratory (2019) · cites this paper as Maples-Keller et al., 2017
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“VR exposure therapy allows the controlled delivery of sensory stimulation (Maples-Keller et al., 2017).”
From iSenseVR: bringing VR exposure therapy outside the laboratory (2019) · cites this paper as Maples-Keller et al., 2017
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“For instance, virtual reality (VR) technology, accessed through head-mounted displays, provides an immersive experience similar to real-life situations and has been used in controlled environments [7].”
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“However, when traditional graded exposure becomes complex to set up due to difficulties to control specific environment cues, VR offers opportunities for highly controllable settings empowering sensory exposure with the presence of the therapist, which would not be possible otherwise (Maples-Keller et al., 2017).”
From iSenseVR: bringing VR exposure therapy outside the laboratory (2019) · cites this paper as Maples-Keller et al., 2017
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“…treatment research has been conducted for anxiety disorders, and broadly, results suggest the VRE is related to large declines in anxiety symptoms, 12 demonstrates similar efficacy compared to traditional exposure interventions, has a powerful real-life impact, and demonstrates good stability of…”
ResultVirtual reality exposure therapy for anxiety disorders: A meta-analysis
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“14 There is evidence that treatment gains made in VRE generalize to real life, as meta-analytic results suggest that VRE patients, compared to wait-list patients, perform significantly better on behavioral assessments post-treatment, and found no significant differences between VRE and in-vivo…”
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“In particular, VR is effective in treating acrophobia based on both within-group,(38) and controlled between-group, data.(10,39,40) Similar effects have been observed in RCTs for treating arachnophobia (fear of spiders) and, in one multiple-baseline study, fear of driving.”
BackgroundSelf-citationVirtual reality exposure therapy in anxiety disorders: a quantitative meta-analysis
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“13 Meta-analytic results for VRE for anxiety disorders even suggest a small effect size favoring VRE over in-vivo conditions, despite most studies not demonstrating an advantage when considered in isolation.”
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“control of sensory cues, particularly for auditory, tactile, and olfactory systems, increases the sense of realism and memory of the virtual environment.(1,4,5)”
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“Anxiety Disorders Awide body of research has suggested large treatment effects for exposure-based therapy for anxiety disorders.(11) Modern exposure therapy is based on emotion-processing theory, which posits that fearmemories are structures that contain information regarding fear stimuli, responses, and meaning.”
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Somaratne, Y. N., Collett, J., & Foe, A. D. (2021) · Heliyon · doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e07986 · Cited by 1
“, 2007), specific phobias, social-anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, generalised anxiety disorder, OCD, schizophrenia, eating pathology, and autism (Maples-Keller et al., 2017).”
Distéfano, M. J., Labandeira, L. P., Tarnogol, F. M., & Mesurado, B. (2020) · Psychology and Mental Health Care · doi:10.31579/2637-8892/069 · Cited by 1
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“Whether for post-traumatic stress disorder, phobias, or disordered eating behaviours, virtual reality (VR) has gained popularity as a supportive tool in the treatment of mental illnesses in recent years due to good therapeutic outcomes [1].”
BackgroundVirtual Reality Interactive Method and Device Based on Wireless Communication Tracking
Song, S. (2021) · Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing · doi:10.1155/2021/6876974 · Cited by 2
“Virtual reality technology allows controlled delivery of sensory stimulation through the therapist, and is a convenient and cost-effective treatment method [4].”
MethodGao, Y. X. (2022) · Mobile Information Systems · doi:10.1155/2022/3389039 · Cited by 1
Role of virtual reality in medical field
Sharma, S., Tuli, N., & Mantri, A. (2022) · AIP conference proceedings · doi:10.1063/5.0080597 · Cited by 1
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Pallavicini, F., Orena, E. F., Achille, F., Stefanini, S., Caragnano, C., Vuolato, C., Pepe, A., Ranieri, P., Santo, S. G. D., Greci, L., et al. (2022) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-21707-4_12 · Cited by 1
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“To this date, there have been many studies and research providing positive evidence to use VR as a solution to tackle Stress and Anxiety [9-14].”
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“Realistic environments have been shown to be more effective in reducing stress levels (Alyan et al., 2021), and VR technology is the most capable of providing this, offering a sense of realism and presence that other devices simply cannot (Maples-Keller et al., 2017).”
BackgroundWoo, O. K. L., Te, H. Y., & Craig, S. L. (2023) · IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality Adjunct (ISMAR-Adjunct) · doi:10.1109/ismar-adjunct60411.2023.00075 · Cited by 1
“…of clinical psychology, abundant research supported its positive outcomes in treating various mental disorders, including anxiety disorders [20, 39, 61], phobias [34], panic disorder [63], post-traumatic stress disorder [13,50], psychotic disorders [33, 56], eating disorders [53, 54],…”
BackgroundBastardas-Albero, A., Vall, B., Testor, C. P., & Losilla, J.-M. (2023) · Frontiers in Virtual Reality · doi:10.3389/frvir.2023.1263545 · Cited by 1
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Ahn, B., & Son, S.-M. (2024) · American Journal of Health Behavior · doi:10.5993/ajhb.48.5.20 · Cited by 1
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“With advancements in technology, wearable devices like smartwatches offer a promising avenue for real-time health monitoring and early detection of mental health crises [2].”
Metadata
- Authors
- Maples-Keller, J. L., Bunnell, B. E., Kim, S.-J., & Rothbaum, B. O.
- Affiliations
- Emory University (US)
- Venue
- Harvard Review of Psychiatry
- Published
- 2017-05
- Volume
- 25
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 103-113
- ISSN
- 1067-3229 (ISSN-L)
- 1465-7309
- PMC
- PMC5421394
- OpenAlex
- W2611287876
- Cited by
- 862
- References
- 108
- Citations by year
- 2026: 111 · 2025: 147 · 2024: 115 · 2023: 93 · 2022: 113 · 2021: 117 · 2020: 85 · 2019: 51 · 2018: 24 · 2017: 5
- FWCI
- 4.40
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Harvard Review of Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- Genentech
- National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH094757, R01MH070880)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Virtual Reality Applications and Impacts
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Digital Mental Health Interventions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Keywords
- virtual reality, anxiety disorders, mental illness, exposure therapy, virtual reality exposure therapy, immersive virtual reality, head-mounted displays, treatment effectiveness, psychiatric treatment
- MeSH terms
- Anxiety Disorders, Humans, Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic, Treatment Outcome, Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy
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