Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

Virtual Avatars Help Heal in Cybertherapy

by Terrence O'Brien on November 24, 2010 at 07:20 AM

Stéphane BouchardVirtual reality has been used for years to treat such phobias as heights and spiders, but improvements in the technology -- particularly in the field of artificial intelligence -- are allowing researchers and therapists to expand the scope of virtual treatments. It's now possible to use virtual people and avatars to address social problems like anxiety, alcoholism and gambling addiction. Researchers are finding that patients often respond to virtual people in virtual worlds in the same way they do to their real-life counterparts (whether that means getting uncomfortably quiet or reaching for the liquor). But, in the controlled environment of the laboratory, therapists can coach patients through these urges and situations as they experience their anxieties and desires.

While not exceptionally life-like, the avatars' expressive faces, natural body movements, and extensive (though still somewhat clunky) vocabularies are still realistic enough to provoke emotional responses. Researchers even found that patients were more likely to open up to and confide in a virtual therapist than they were a human one conducting an interview via video. Soldiers suffering from Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are even using the tech to address their mental scars by reliving traumatic events from the war in the comfort of a therapist's office. While virtual therapy still has its critics and skeptics, the tool is gaining wider acceptance and being applied to a much broader set of disorders than it has in the past. Ten years from now, it might be more common for a therapist to hand you a VR headset than a prescription for Xanax.

Tags: alcoholism, anxiety, cybertherapy, DrugTreatment, MentalHealth, science, therapy, top, VirtualReality

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular