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CSME 2020/04
Volume 41 No.2 : 131-140
 
Behavioral Therapy for Phobias Using Immersive Virtual Reality Technology

Amy J. C. Trappey a, Charles V. Trappey b, Chia-Ming Changc, Usharani Hareesh Govindarajan d, Xyuan-Yu Shihe, I-An Sue and Nishant Gupta f
aDistinguished Professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan 300.
bDepartment of Management Science, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan 30010.
cClinical psychiatrist and research faculty in the Psychiatry Department, Chang Gong Memorial Hospital, Taiwan 33305.
dAssistant Professor in the Sino US Global Logistics Institute, Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China 200030.
eGraduate students studying in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan 300.
fGraduate student from the Institute of Informatics and Communication, University of Delhi, India and 2019 summer intern student under Prof. Amy Trappey’s supervision at National Tsing Hua University.


Abstract: Mental disorders are difficult to diagnose and treat. Global economic growth, changing social organizations, and urban conditions affect mental health resulting in increased costs, limited benefits, and fewer facilities for behavioral treatment. Virtual reality-based behavioral treatments for mental illness offer benefits to supplement conventional therapies. Virtual Reality Treatment (VRT) let patients confront phobias using a virtual environment with a therapist. A therapist observes and coaches the patient through increasingly difficult levels of confrontation to desensitize patient phobias. This research presents a generic framework and discusses the related behavioral therapy.
A VRT for confronting fear of spiders is the case used for the technology development and data collection processes which establish the basis for future clinical trials and analysis.
The preliminary trial of the arachnophobia VRT platform with eight scenario levels has produced accurate bio-feedback results. The system demonstrates promise for rapid VRT application development for clinical behavioral psychotherapy.


Keywords:  Clinical virtual reality, Behavioral therapy, Immersive system frame- work, Arachnophobia.

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*Corresponding author; e-mail: trappey@ie.nthu.edu.tw
© 2020  CSME , ISSN 0257-9731 





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