Psychology2016

Psychological Therapies 623

Practice Quiz How much do you remember?

Pick the best answer.

1. Why are antidepressants taking the place of many antianxiety drugs
   in the treatment of anxiety disorders?
   a. Antidepressants are more cost effective.
   b. Antianxiety drugs may be addictive and have more side effects.
   c. Antianxiety drugs are becoming less effective.
   d. Antianxiety drugs are actually no longer available.


2. Prolonged use of antipsychotic medication can lead to a side effect
   called ____, which is characterized by involuntary facial and
   tongue movements (e.g., grimacing, constant chewing), or repetitive
   involuntary jerks or dance-like movements of the arms and legs.
   a. agranulocytosis
   b. tardive dyskinesia

c. synesthesia

d. neuromalignant disorder

3. Today’s electroconvulsive shock therapy is often quite useful in the
   treatment of
   a. dissociative identity disorder.
   b. schizophrenia.
   c. mild anxiety.
   d. severe depression.


4. A new therapeutic technique known as deep brain stimulation (DBS)
   is showing promise in the treatment of
   a. anorexia nervosa where other treatments have failed.
   b. phobias.
   c. personality disorders.
   d. mania.

Applying Psychology to Everyday Life

Virtual Reality Therapies

15.13 Describe how virtual reality can be used in psychotherapy.

Virtual reality is a software-generated, three-dimensional simulated

environment. Imagine yourself playing a video game, but instead

of viewing your character on the screen in front of you, you are

immersed in the visual and auditory world created by the game

designers, seeing and hearing through the eyes and ears of your

character. While playing a video game in this manner might be a lot

of fun, there are some very practical uses of virtual reality (VR) for

treating psychological disorders.

One of the main uses of VR as a therapy incorporates expo-

sure therapy of some form. Exposure therapy involves preventing

a person with a phobia, for example, from avoiding the presen-

tation of the phobic object—preventing the typical avoidance

response and eventually resulting in extinction of the conditioned

fear. Using VR ensures that the person being treated cannot avoid

exposure, as the sight and sound of the animal, open spaces, or

whatever the phobia involves is always right in front of him or her.

For example, one study examined the use of exposure therapy

using VR technology with specific phobia of small animals, namely spiders and cock-

roaches (Botella et al., 2016). Participants wore VR goggles and were able to interact

with the spiders or cockroaches virtually. The control group participants were exposed to

real spiders or cockroaches. After the VR and in vivo exposure treatments, both condi-

tions resulted in significant improvements (Botella et al., 2016).

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is another mental health issue bene-

fiting from the use of VR psychotherapy. Cases of this disorder are rising (and with

the world events discussed in Chapter Fourteen and other such stressors, psychol-

ogists expect the number of PTSD cases to continue to rise), and traditional treat-

ments are not always effective. Although still a relatively new area of research,

evidence suggests virtual reality psychotherapy may be as effective as traditional expo-

sure methods in the treatment of PTSD and may especially be appealing for clients

that do not want to pursue traditional exposure methods or techniques (Goncalves

Virtual reality can be used to expose patients to phobic objects and

situations, including scenarios that someone with acrophobia (fear of

heights) may find distressing.