Viability of virtual reality exposure therapy as a treatment alternative

Computers in Human Behavior

Volumn 24, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 1032-1040

  Bush, Jimmy ^a  

^a IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Anxiety disorders; Exposure therapy; Psychotherapy; Treatment effectiveness evaluation; Virtual reality

Indexed keywords

MEDICAL PROBLEMS; NATURAL SCIENCES COMPUTING; PSYCHOLOGY COMPUTING;

ANXIETY DISORDERS; EXPOSURE THERAPY; PSYCHOTHERAPY; TREATMENT EFFECTIVENESS EVALUATION;

VIRTUAL REALITY;

EID: 39749186108     PISSN: 07475632     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2007.03.006     Document Type: Article

References (25)

1. Baños R.M., Botella C., Perpiñá C., Alcañiz M., Lozano J.A., Osma J., et al. Virtual reality treatment of flying phobia [Electronic version]. IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine 6 (2002) 206-212
2. Botella C., Baños R.M., Perpiñá C., Villa H., Alcañiz M., and Rey A. Virtual reality treatment of claustrophobia: a case report [Electronic version]. Behaviour Research and Therapy 36 (1998) 239-246
3. Botella C., Villa H., Garcia-Palacios A., Baños R.M., Perpiñá C., and Alcañiz M. Clinically significant virtual environments for the treatment of panic disorder and agoraphobia [Electronic Version]. CyberPsychology and Behavior 7 5 (2004) 527-535
4. Cliburn D. Virtual Reality for small colleges [Electronic version]. Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges 19 4 (2004) 28-38
5. Emmelkamp P.M.G., Krijn M., Hulsbosch A.M., de Vries S., Schuemie M.J., and van der Mast C.A.P.G. Virtual reality treatment versus exposure in vivo: a comparative evaluation in acrophobia [Electronic version]. Behaviour Research and Therapy 40 (2002) 509-511 516
6. Garcia-Palacios A., Hoffman H., Carlin A., Furness III T.A., and Botella C. Virtual reality in the treatment of spider phobia: a controlled study [Electronic version]. Behaviour Research and Therapy 40 (2002) 983-993
7. Garcia-Palacios A., Hoffman H.G., See S.K., Tsai A., and Botella C. Redefining therapeutic success with virtual reality exposure therapy. CyberPsychology and Behavior 4 (2001) 341-348. http://www.liebertonline.com/toc/cpb/4/3 Retrieved October 15, 2006, from
8. Gibson E.J., and Walk R.D. The visual cliff [Electronic version]. Scientific American 202 (1960) 64-71
9. Golding J.F. Motion sickness susceptibility [Electronic version]. Autonomic Neuroscience 129 (2006) 67-76
10. Hodges, L. F., Rothbaum, B. O., Watson, B., Kessler, G. D., & Opdyke, D. (1996). A Virtual airplane for fear of flying therapy [Electronic version]. In: Proceedings of the IEEE virtual reality annual international symposium, 1996, (pp. 86-93).
11. Jang D.P., Ku J.H., Choi Y.H., Wiederhold B.K., Nam S.W., Kim I.Y., et al. The development of virtual reality therapy (VRT) system for the treatment of acrophobia and therapeutic case [Electronic version]. IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine 6 (2002) 213-217
12. Juan M.C., Alcaniz M., Monserrat C., Botella C., Baños R., and Guerrero B. Using augmented reality to treat phobias [Electronic version]. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 25 6 (2005) 31-37
13. Krijn M., Emmelkamp P.M.G., Biemond R., de Wilde de Ligny C., Schuemie M.J., and van der Mast C.A.P.G. Treatment of acrophobia in virtual reality: The role of immersion and presence [Electronic version]. Behaviour Research and Therapy 42 (2004) 229-239
14. Krijn M., Emmelkamp P.M.G., Olafsson R.P., and Biemond R. Virtual reality exposure therapy of anxiety disorders: A review [Electronic version]. Clinical Psychology Review 24 (2004) 259-281
15. Messner, J.I., Yerrapathruni, S.C.M., Baratta, A.J., & Whisker, V.E. (2003). Using virtual reality to improve construction engineering education. In: Proceedings of the 2003 American society for engineering education annual conference and exposition. Retrieved October 27, 2006, from http://www.asee.org/acPapers/2003-2034_Final.pdf.
16. National Institute of Mental Health. (2006). Anxiety disorders [Brochure]. NIH Publication No. 06-3879. Retrieved October 15, 2006, from http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/NIMHanxiety.pdf.
17. Pausch, R., Snoddy, J., Taylor, R., Watson, S., & Haseltine, E. (1996). Disney's Aladdin: First steps toward storytelling in virtual reality [Electronic version]. In: Proceedings of the 23rd annual conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques, (pp. 193-203).
18. Riva G., Molinari G., and Vincelli F. Interaction and presence in the clinical relationship: Virtual reality (VR) as communicative medium between patient and therapist [Electronic version]. IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine 6 (2002) 198-205
19. Rothbaum B.O., Hodges L., Smith S., Lee J.H., and Price L. A controlled study of virtual reality exposure therapy for the fear of flying [Electronic version]. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 68 (2000) 1020-1026
20. Slater, M., Usoh, M., & Steed, A. (1994). Steps and ladders in virtual reality [Electronic version]. Retrieved March 6, 2007 from http://www.cs.umu.se/kurser/TDBD12/HT01/papers/slater94step.pdf.
21. Strickland D., Hodges L., North M., and Weghorst S. Overcoming phobias by virtual exposure [Electronic version]. Communications of the ACM 40 8 (1997) 34-39
22. Tichon J., and Banks J. Virtual reality exposure therapy: 150-Degree screen to desktop PC. CyberPsychology and Behavior 9 (2006) 480-488. http://www.liebertonline.com/toc/cpb/9/4 Retrieved October 15, 2006, from
23. Vincelli F., and Riva G. Virtual reality: A new tool for panic disorder therapy [Electronic version]. Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics 2 (2002) 89-95
24. Wiederhold B.K., Jang D.P., Gevirtz R.G., Kim S.I., Kim I.Y., and Wiederhold M.D. The treatment of fear of flying: A controlled study of imaginal and virtual reality graded exposure therapy [Electronic version]. IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine 6 (2002) 218-223
25. Wald J., and Taylor S. Efficacy of virtual reality exposure therapy to treat driving phobia: A case report [Electronic version]. Journal of Behaviour Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry 31 (2000) 249-257