VIRTUAL THERAPHY HELPS WITH DEPPRESSION

A new therapy which involves  a patient embodying themselves in a virtule reality avatar of a crying child could help with depression,research has suggested.The new research tested the tecnology for the first time on patients with a mental health problem.The project is part of a countinuing study at university college London.The university,which is working in collaboration
with ICREA university of Barcelona,has suspected for several years that vitrual therapy could healp with mental health conditions.This  latest research-which has been published in the Brisit journal of phychiatry open and was funded by the medical research council-lays the basis for a large -scale clinical trail to be carried out in the future.The study took some people who were all being treated  by the NHS for depression and put them through the avatar experience.Firstly the patients were asked to put on a headset which projected an adult version of themselves into a virtual reality mirror.The patient was asked to mentally identify with the adult avatar,which exactly replicated the patients body movement in a process known as embodiment.They then noticed a separate avatar of small crying child who was also in the mirror.They were told to say compassionate phrases to the child to try and comfort and console it.Patients asked the child to think of a time when it was happy and to think of someone who loved them.At this stage of the experiment the roles were then reversed.