Addiction Treatment.

Exposure therapy has long been a method for helping clients address contexts and scenarios that are distressing. For clients who have a fear of elevators or agoraphobia, creating situations in which the client may learn to address their fears may not pose a problem. For others whose situational fears are dangerous or otherwise difficult to recreate in therapy sessions, virtual reality therapy provides a means through which exposure may be created. Virtual reality therapy shows particular promise in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for individuals exposed to war or violence. It has been applied with civilians as well as military personnel, and with equipment as simple as projectors and headphones to head-mounted displays, controllers shaped like rifles, olfactory inputs, and environments that vibrate (Motraghi et al., 2014). Likewise, virtual reality therapy may be useful in treatment with addiction, where exposure to situations or substances may pose too great a risk of release at a particular point in time. For instance, treatment with a recovering alcoholic might include a virtual bar scene.