From Imagination to Virtual Reality: The Future of Clinical Psychology

Abstract

The possible role of virtual reality (VR) in clinical psychology derives prevalently from the central role occupied by the imagination and by memory in psychotherapy. These two elements, which are fundamental in the life of everyone, present absolute and relative limits to individual potential. Thanks to virtual experiences, it is possible to transcend these limits. The re-created world may be more vivid and real at times than the one that most subjects are able to describe through their own imagination and through their own memory. This article focuses on imaginative techniques to find new ways of applications in therapy. In particular, the way VR can be used to improve the efficacy of current techniques is explored. VR produces a change with respect to the traditional relationship between client and therapist. The new configuration of this relationship is based on the awareness of being more skilled in the difficult operations of recovery of past experiences through the memory and of foreseeing future experiences through the imagination. At the same time, subjects undergoing treatment perceive the advantage of being able to recreate and use a real experiential world within the confines of their therapists's clinical offices.