Monitor on Psychology - March 2012 - (Page 50)

The experience enables clients to experience emotions in a controlled way, to practice refusal skills and to gain confidence within a given situation. For example, the therapist may stop a loaded scene at a key moment so the two can talk about it, or repeat it until the client has learned how to change his or her reaction to it. Other clinicians are using these technologies to treat people with phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder, social anxiety disorder and autism spectrum disorders. Georgia psychologist David E. Stone, PhD, launched WorldWired, a company that makes tailored virtual environments for clinicians. He uses the technology to treat veterans with PTSD using a virtual immersive form of prolonged exposure therapy, developed with his colleague Deborah Patton. “I have precise control over what is going on,” says Stone. “I can change the images, sounds and smells according to the patient’s experience. I can take the scenario forward or backward.” environments. As part of a pilot study, Herbert and his students treated patients with social anxiety disorder in a secure therapy room on Second Life. The use of avatars, he says, proved a real boon for role-playing, a key element in social-anxiety treatment used to help patients learn social skills, test and refute cognitive distortions about social interactions, and experience controlled anxiety in the face of social situations. “With Second Life, you can create avatars of different ages and genders, greater or lesser attractiveness — whatever is called for,” he says. The technology has other distinct advantages for treating patients as well, Herbert adds. Clients can log on anywhere, so people who have difficulty making it into the office can easily have sessions or short booster sessions from home or on the road. And he is particularly keen on the technology’s ability to bring treatments to those who wouldn’t otherwise have access. Promising early findings Preliminary research suggests that these interventions work. A study by psychologist Greg flat-screen apps M. Reger, PhD, and colleagues Psychologists are using flatin the February 2011 issue of screen avatar technology in a the Journal of Traumatic Stress, variety of ways as well. In their for instance, finds that activeown virtual world, Wexler and duty soldiers who undergo Roff-Wexler work with power an immersive virtual form of and design companies to provide prolonged exposure therapy organizational, management have a significant reduction in and team training. To develop richarD h. Wexler post-traumatic stress symptoms leadership skills, for instance, New york psychologist by the end of treatment. Three a potential leader is placed in randomized controlled trials a virtual world with an avatar comparing that treatment with “employee.” The leader is told he more traditional treatments are now under way. Meanwhile, a must get the employee to accomplish the task of putting puzzle yet-unpublished pilot study by Herbert and Drexel colleagues pieces together to form a box. At some point the avatar knocks all Evan Forman, PhD, Erica Yuen and Elizabeth Goetter finds of the pieces down rather than completing the puzzle. The action that clients with social anxiety disorder who adopted avatars becomes the basis of training people how to work with employees and were treated in Second Life using evidence-based cognitive when they make mistakes — motivating them to complete the behavioral therapy showed as much improvement as clients puzzle, for instance, rather than doing it for them. they saw face-to-face. Meanwhile, Cynthia Tandy, PhD, of Valdosta State Other research indicates that some people stick with virtual University, uses Second Life to supplement her monthly facetreatment longer. In an ongoing study of teens with substance to-face training with students. To help them practice counseling abuse problems funded by the Missouri Foundation for Health, and interviewing skills, she has created a simulated social Dick Dillon, of the nonprofit behavioral health-care company service agency in Second Life featuring rooms that resemble Preferred Family Healthcare, is finding that young people who settings they may eventually work in — say a hospital room, receive treatment in a secure, Second Life-type environment a jail cell or a home setting. The students practice evaluating are more than twice as likely stay in treatment as those in virtual prisoners and counseling virtual hospital patients. They traditional treatment. They also attend two-and-a-half times also do group projects online. more therapeutic activities than controls. The medium goes a long way in sustaining their interest, Tandy is finding. “They’ll say to me, ‘I feel like I was there, I feel Questions remain like I was in that environment, it was so much better than being Still, it remains unproven whether these virtual modalities are in a classroom,’” she says. any better as platforms for treating people than other distance Other psychologists are conducting therapy in these 50 M o n i to r o n p s yc h o l o g y • M a rc h 2 0 1 2 “Part of our responsibility as psychologists is to understand how these techniques affect human behavior, and to make sure we use them for the good of the client.”

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Monitor on Psychology - March 2012

Monitor on Psychology - March 2012
Letters
President’s column
Contents
From the CEO
Supreme Court rejects eyewitness protections
New member benefit: prevention screenings
A psychodynamic treatment for PTSD shows promise for soldiers
Was ‘Little Albert’ ill during the famed conditioning study?
New research identifies ways to improve eyewitness identifications
In Brief
‘Our health at risk’
Perspective on Practice
APA endorses higher education guidelines
TIME CAPSULE
QUESTIONNAIRE
Random Sample
Judicial Notebook
Help for struggling veterans
Driving out cancer disparities
In the Public Interest
SCIENCE WATCH
Practice, virtually
The legal and ethical issues of virtual therapy
Psychologist PROFILE
EARLY CAREER PSYCHOLOGY
Bringing life into focus
Pay attention to me
AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATION
Division Spotlight
Personalities

Monitor on Psychology - March 2012

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