People may soon use virtual reality to treat their depression and to be less critical and more compassionate towards themselves, a new study shows. A new virtual reality therapy has effectively reduced depressive symptoms of patients with some reporting significant drop in depression severity.
In the study, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry Open, patients claim virtual reality therapy changed their response to real-life situations in which they would previously have been self-critical.
The findings come from the analysis of the effect of the therapy to 15 depression patients, aged 23 to 61. Researchers, from University College London (UCL) and ICREA-University of Barcelona, asked the participants to wear a virtual reality headset to see from the perspective of a life-size “avatar” or virtual body.
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