?Can VR treat fears and phobias

-CanVRTreatFearsAndPhobia.mp3

CanVRTreatFearsAndPhobias.pdf

Rob

Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I’m Rob.

Sam

And I’m Sam. Here at 6 Minute English, we love to chat about new technology. One

of our favourite topics is VR or virtual reality, and the ways it’s shaping life in the

future.

Rob

VR allows you to put on a headset and escape into a completely different world.

In this programme, we’ll be hearing about some of the ways VR is tackling serious

problems like domestic violence, and helping people overcome phobias – the

strong and irrational fear of something. And, of course, we’ll be learning some

useful related vocabulary along the way.

Sam

People who use VR often describe the experience as intense. Putting on the

headset makes you feel you’re really there, in whatever new world you’ve chosen.

And it’s this intensity that inventors, scientists and therapists are using to help

people overcome their problems.

Rob

We’ll hear more soon, but first I have a question for you, Sam. One of the phobias

VR can help with is the fear of heights – but what is the proper name for this

psychological disorder? Is the fear of heights called:

a) alektorophobia?

b) arachnophobia? or

c) acrophobia?

Sam

I’ll say a) alektorophobia.

Rob

OK, Sam. We’ll find out the answer at the end of the programme.

Sam

Now, if like me, you’re not very good with heights, you’ll be happy to know that a

company called Oxford VR has designed a system to help with precisely that

problem. In the safety of your own home, you put on a headset and are guided

through a series of tasks moving you higher and higher off the ground. You start

by taking an elevator to the top floor of tall building and move on harder

challenges, like climbing a rope.

Rob

Daniel Freeman is a professor of clinical psychology at Oxford University. Listen

as he explains how the VR experience works to BBC World Service programme,

People Fixing the World.

Daniel Freeman

Even though you’re consciously aware it’s a simulation, it doesn’t stop all your

habitual reactions to heights happening, and that’s really important, and that’s

why it’s got such a potential to be therapeutic. The art of successful therapy, and

what you can do really, really well in VR, is enable someone to drop those

defences, and in VR a person is more able to drop them because they know there’s

no real height there.

Sam

Although the VR experience seems real, the person using it knows it’s only a

simulation – a pretend copy of the real thing. This gives them confidence to go

higher, knowing they can’t really get hurt.

Rob

But although it’s simulated, the experience is real enough to trick your mind into

acting in its habitual way – the way it usually, typically works. Although your brain

knows you have both feet on the ground, VR is so realistic that to complete the

tasks you have to drop your defences, a phrase meaning to relax and trust people

by lowering the psychological barriers you have built to protect yourself.

Sam

Oxford VR’s ‘Fear of Heights’ experience uses VR to put people into another world,

but the next project we’ll hear about takes things even further - putting people

into someone else’s body.

Rob

In Barcelona, a VR simulation is being used in prisons to make men convicted of

domestic violence aware of what it feels like to be in the position of their victims.

The project, called ‘virtual embodiment’, is led by neuroscientist, Mavi Sanchez[1]Vives, of Barcelona’s Institute for Biomedical Research.

Mavi Sanchez-Vives

In a virtual world we can be someone different and have a first-person embodied

perspective from the point-of-view, for example, of a different person, different

gender, different age. One can go through different situations and have the

experience from this totally novel perspective.

Sam

Many of the prisoners lack empathy for their victims. ‘Virtual embodiment’ works

by giving these men the experience of abuse in the first-person – from the

perspective of someone who actually experiences an event in person.

Rob

In VR, the men have the insults and abuse they gave to others turned back on

them. It’s a novel – a new and original - experience for them, and not a pleasant

one either. But the VR therapy seems to be working, and Dr Sanchez-Vives reports

more and more of the prisoners successfully reintegrating into their communities

after their release from prison.

Sam

The experience VR creates of seeing things from someone else’s point-of-view can

be therapeutic, even for serious problems. And speaking of problems, what was

the answer to your question, Rob?

Rob

I asked Sam whether the correct name for the fear of heights was

alektorophobia, arachnophobia, or acrophobia?

Sam

I guessed it was alektorophobia.

Rob

Which was the wrong answer. Alektorophobia is the fear of chickens! The correct

answer was c) acrophobia – a fear of heights, and a good example of a phobia.

Sam

Let’s recap the rest of the vocabulary we’ve learned, starting with simulation – a

pretend copy of something that looks real but is not.

Rob

Habitual describes the usual, typical way something works.

Sam

The phrase ‘drop your defences’ means to relax and trust something by lowering

your psychological barriers.

Rob

In the first-person means talking about something from the perspective of the

person who actually experienced an event themselves.

Sam

And finally, the adjective novel means completely new and original, unlike

anything that has happened before.

Rob

Well, once again, our six minutes are really - and virtually - over! Goodbye for now!

Sam

Bye!

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