Month: July 2014

Advances in Virtual Reality and Anxiety Disorders – Press Release

Brenda K Wiederhold, President of Virtual Reality Medical Institute (Belgium) and Interactive Media Institute (California) together with Stéphane Bouchard, Professor, Université du Québec en Outaouais are pleased to announce the publication of their most recent book by Springer:  Advances in Virtual Reality and Anxiety Disorders.  The book is part of a series on Anxiety and Related Disorders, edited by Martin M. Antony, Professor and Chair, Department of Psychology, Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada. The interactive computer-generated world of virtual reality has been successful in treating phobias and other anxiety-related conditions, in part because of its distinct advantages over traditional in vivo exposure. Yet many clinicians still think of VR technology as it was in the 1990s–bulky, costly, and technically difficult–with little knowledge of its evolution toward more modern, evidence-based, practice-friendly treatment.

These updates, and their clinical usefulness, are the subject of Advances in Virtual Reality and Anxiety Disorders, a timely guidebook geared toward integrating up-to-date VR methods into everyday practice. Introductory material covers key virtual reality concepts, provides a brief history of VR as used in therapy for anxiety disorders, ad­dresses the concept of presence, and explains the side effects, known as cybersickness, that affect a small percentage of clients. Chapters in the book’s main section detail current techniques and review study findings for using VR in the treatment of:

 

·                     Claustrophobia.

·                     Panic disorder, agoraphobia, and driving phobia.

·                     Acrophobia and aviophobia.

·                     Arachnophobia.

·                     Social phobia.

·                     Generalized anxiety disorder and OCD.

·                     PTSD.

·                     Plus clinical guidelines for establishing a VR clinic.

 

An in-depth framework for effective (and cost-effective) therapeutic innovations for entrenched problems, Advances in Virtual Reality and Anxiety Disorders will find an engaged audience among psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and mental health counselors.

Please visit http://www.springer.com/psychology/book/978-1-4899-8022-9 to find out more about this new publication or to order your paper copy or eBook.