Acrophobia treatment with virtual reality assisted acceptance and commitment therapy: case reports
Zülal Çelik · Dusunen Adam The Journal of Psychiatry and Neurological Sciences · 2020
Exposure has an essential place in the treatment of acrophobia and technology may increase the success of exposure therapies in many ways.We predicted that the integration of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) with Virtual Reality (VR) technology would be beneficial in the treatment of acrophobia and would improve clients' compliance with therapy.This report presents two examples of VR-assisted ACT treatment for acrophobia.The process consists of six sessions (one initial interview and five sessions of interventions) for individual therapy.In the first two sessions, functional behavioral analysis and case formulation with clients were performed and skills to be used during exposure sessions taught.From the second session, application of VR-assisted exposure interventions with ACT principles was started.Results showed a significant improvement for both clients.At the end of the treatment, they were both able to complete the virtual behavioral approach task and presented decreased avoidance strategies and increased value-based behaviors.VR-assisted ACT is promising, especially to facilitate exposure treatments.