ABSTRACT
Virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) is the best-known use of virtual reality (VR) in anxiety treatment and an incredible tool for helping clients overcome fears. Therapists can offer safe, private, controlled, individualized, vividly evocative, repeatable exposures during sessions without leaving the office. Readers learn the rationale for exposure, get an overview of the research support for exposure and VRET, and explore the benefits of VR exposure versus other exposure options. Common therapist concerns about exposure and/or VRET are addressed. The chapter explains where exposure fits within a comprehensive model of anxiety treatment. Readers are taken step by step through a process to prepare clients for successful VRET by creating a shared understanding of anxiety and its treatment, teaching anxiety tolerance skills, identifying and countering clients’ fears, explaining the rationale for exposure, and obtaining permission. The importance of a collaborative, therapeutic alliance that empowers clients as active partners in their own recovery and of therapist willingness to adapt treatment to client needs are stressed. Readers learn ways to track clients’ symptoms and fear levels, create hierarchies of virtual scenarios, implement exposure, monitor treatment progress, and prevent relapse.
