Virtual reality as therapeutic tool in the confines of social anxiety disorder treatment

In this paper, we present a study, conducted over eight social phobic subjects, whose aim is to evaluate the efficiency and flexibility of virtual reality as a therapeutic tool in the confines of a social phobia behavioral therapeutic program. Our research protocol, accepted by the ethical commission of the cantonal hospices’ psychiatry service, is identical in content and structure for each patient. This study’s second goal is to use virtual exposure to evaluate objectively a specific parameter present in social phobia, namely eye contact avoidance, by using an eyetracking system. Analysis of our results shows a tendency to improvement in the subjects’ feedback to specific assessment scales, which is correlated to the decrease of eye contact avoidance. The results show that the presented virtual reality exposure therapy protocol could be successfully applied to social therapy.