JasonUnbound

VR therapy

Exposure-based therapy seeks to reduce anxiety through controlled exposure to anxiety-producing stimuli. If you're afraid of frogs, for example, this can be accomplished by gradually ratcheting up the stimulus: first look at a photo of a frog, then look at a live frog in a tank, and finally end up holding a fearsome frog in your hand. (The opposite of such systematic desensitization is called flooding, and would involve a Fear-Factoresque screamathon in a glass sacrophagus with a hundred frogs.)

Now here's where Better Living Through Computers comes in. A company called Virtually Better is now marketing, to therapists, virtual reality phobic environments. They'll allow you to become virtually desensitized to whatever phobes you. Interesting, eh? And get this, they're not just being used to help overcome fear of flying:

The treatment of substance addiction, too, is being investigated. Several researchers are testing to see whether virtual exposure to drugs, alcohol and cigarettes can trigger cravings, and thus help patients learn to resist them. Virtually Better has created scenes of a virtual bar and crack house for that purpose. [NYT]

Virtual crackhouse! I wonder how realistic it is.

Posted by Jason at February 19, 2004 05:51 PM