A Controlled Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy Application for Smartphones

Exposure therapy (ET) is often used as a therapeutic process for the treatment of a psychological disorder. Usually, this type of therapy is challenging to apply traditionally as the therapist must expose the patient safely to the cause of the disorder. To help surpass this problem, a virtual reality (VR) application was developed to support exposure therapy. As these therapies are based on a gradual and repetitive process, with this application, the patient can be exposed to the phobic element at different levels of anxiety intensity as prescribed by the therapist. This application was designed to be used either during the therapeutic sessions or at home. While using it in therapeutic sessions, it allows the therapist to include the analysis of physiological signals, escape movements, or other reactions during the exposure. At home, as homework for the therapy sessions, it will allow the patient to keep training what was learned during therapy. It is being developed as a serious game for smartphones, and users will only need a cardboard-like VR headset.