Virtual reality in psychotherapy training

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) has myriad applications to psychotherapy training and has manifold adjunctive or primary applications to psychotherapeutic treatments. Unfortunately, VR technology has not yet advanced to a point where many of these applications are readily available or even affordable; however, alternatives are available, and the creative investigator may build upon existing, available, and affordable technology to develop simple VR systems. Eventually, more sophisticated equipment and design features that increasingly approximate the VR three-dimensional emersion environments may be added in a stepwise fashion to create more realistic iterations of the VR psychotherapeutic environment. In our initial VR training endeavor, elements of the empirically supported and multifaceted Systematic Treatment Selection model (STS, Beutler & Clarkin, 1990; Beutler, Clarkin, & Bongar, 2000; Beutler & Harwood, 2000) were chosen as training criteria and incorporated into our VR training system to demonstrate both its feasibility and practicality. This article outlines our initial endeavor in the development of a VR system for training in psychotherapy and summarizes STS training-relevant research findings. Future directions for the applications of VR technology to both training and treatment are provided.