Virtual reality treatment of flying phobia.
Flying phobia (FP) might become a very incapacitating and disturbing problem in a person's social, working, and private areas. Psychological interventions based on exposure therapy have proved to be effective, but given the particular nature of this disorder they bear important limitations. Exposure therapy for FP might be excessively costly in terms of time, money, and efforts. Virtual reality (VR) overcomes these difficulties as different significant environments might be created, where the patient can interact with what he or she fears while in a totally safe and protected environment-the therapist's consulting room. This paper intends, on one hand, to show the different scenarios designed by our team for the VR treatment of FP, and on the other, to present the first results supporting the effectiveness of this new tool for the treatment of FP in a multiple baseline study.
Baños
Rosa M
RM
Departamento de Personalidad, Evaluacion y Tratamientos Psicologicos, Universidad de Valencia, Spain.
Botella
Cristina
C
Perpiñá
Concepción
C
Alcañiz
Mariano
M
Lozano
Jose Antonio
JA
Osma
Jorge
J
Gallardo
Myriam
M
D000328:Adult; D000337:Aerospace Medicine; D000401:Aircraft; D002908:Chronic Disease; D015928:Cognitive Behavioral Therapy / Q000379:methods; D003196:Computer Graphics; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003887:Desensitization, Psychologic / Q000379:methods*; D005239:Fear / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D016584:Panic Disorder / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013813:Therapy, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D014195:Travel / Q000523:psychology*; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014584:User-Computer Interface