VR Therapy

Why go to the therapist when you can hire a Samsung Gear VR?

Something as simple as hiring a Samsung Gear VR could be the next step in changing your life. Virtual Reality is a form of technology which has been rapidly on the rise, revolutionizing the way that people engage with gaming and entertainment. However, what many may not know is that it has also been used in a myriad of therapeutic practices. In fact, therapy involving the use of VR has been utilized for decades, and with the rise of affordable VR headsets such as the Samsung Gear VR, it is now capable of really transforming our everyday lives.

How it Works

Essentially, Virtual Reality Therapy is a process which mirrors basic therapeutic techniques but with new technology. Therapists are turning to hire of VR headsets and using them as a way of creating a more convincing form of exposure therapy, a technique where patients are increasingly exposed to whatever may cause their fears.

Patients can simply slip on a VR headset and become immersed in a visual and audio world which reproduces any particular trigger situation. Whether you’re afraid of heights, flying, or are dealing with more burdening issues such as depression and anxiety, VR therapy works by gradually confronting the brain with stimuli you may have been conditioned to react badly to. After, it accustoms the brain to your personal stimuli, helping you overcome that fear.

Therapy can also be applied to the sports sector. Athletes can be rehabilitated, and trained using the aid of Virtual Reality.

Benefits

People with social anxiety may be placed in a packed room; arachnophobes confronted with virtual spiders, and childhood and past trauma can be combatted with a variety of therapeutic exercises.

Although it may seem like an unlikely solution, VR therapy is now one of the primary treatments for PTSD, and surprisingly, it has been used to combat the disorder since the 1990s. Ordinary exposure therapy was successful overall, but one of the major difficulties presented was patients’ unwillingness to replay those memories of trauma. This is where VR steps in, helping patients to triumph over that desire to repress trauma.

Companies such as Bravemind and Beyond Care only prove the power of this new tool we now have the ability to access. The Bravemind software recreates traumatic environments, yet tailors them to each particular PTSD sufferer. Similarly, Beyond Care harnesses the power of VR to manipulate the mind and adjust existing memories. They use the therapeutic technique EMDR (eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing) to render traumatic memories less vivid by having the patient simultaneously confront these memories and perform certain eye movements.

Conclusion and Apps for Purchase

While this is all very radical news about the developments of therapy, it is by no means limited to the field of psychology. Although previously prohibited due to high cost and excessive equipment, VR accessibility is no longer an issue. Thanks to more compact and affordable consumer equipment, anyone is able to simply hire or rent a virtual reality headset for their own personal use.

For example, the Samsung Gear VR is an inexpensive mobile device which has kept itself up to date, actively coming up with applications and programmes which engage with this new field of advancement. It launched a ‘Be Fearless’ campaign which aimed to help ordinary people overcome their fear of heights. Participants from all over the world took place in the 4 week experiment, and an amazing 87.5% of them effectively reduced their irrational fear. It is now available to the wider public in the form of an app called ‘Cityscapes’.

Or, if you have arachnophobia, you can now rent a Gear VR and try out Samsung’s new app ‘Itsy’. Additionally, a recent university study using a Gear VR showed its ability to even combat things such as having a stutter. The Samsung app ‘Speech Center VR’ helps people to become better communicators, using avatars and interactive lessons to fully immerse users.

Gaming and entertainment are clearly only the first step in unlocking the possibilities of virtual reality, and now with the ability to hire a headset with just the click of a button, transforming mental health may only be the start of the benefits of VR.