I don’t think anything of leaving my house in the morning to take my kids to school or to go to work. It’s nothing for me to walk into a store, make small talk with a cashier, and hold the door for a stranger. But I’m one of the lucky ones. I don’t suffer from the debilitating fear of leaving the safety of my home in the first place, let alone make it to work or the store.
For people who struggle with agoraphobia, which is the fear of going outdoors, any of what I’ve just described would be a herculean task. And, as it turns out, agoraphobia can be a symptom of psychosis. So, when everything around you is whispering ‘don’t leave. You can’t go out there’, how is a person supposed to make it to their therapist’s office for treatment or visit the pharmacy for their medication?
In steps Virtual Reality. Through special programming, those dealing with these symptoms can now use a VR headset to “walk through” the entire experience of leaving their home, completing an errand or therapy visit, and return home safe again, one step at a time.
The program, called gameChange, was developed in England by the University of Oxford and Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust. The program is intended to help not just with agoraphobia – though that is its central focus – but to tackle psychosis head on through VR.
“Designed in collaboration with people with lived experience, over six sessions users practice being in simulations of everyday situations: a café, pub, street, doctor’s (office) and a bus. They can choose what they work on and when,” gameChange’s website states.
In 2022, the Lancet Psychiatry reported that gameChange’s initial study was the largest ever using VR to treat patients with psychosis and schizophrenia. For six weeks, patients wore a VR headset for 30-minute therapy sessions while continuing their regular course of treatment (medication, traditional therapy, etc.). Researchers said the sessions made participants feel more comfortable with going outside of their home and taking more chances.
“There’s a little bit of the conscious bit [of the brain] going: ‘OK, it’s OK, I know it’s not real, and therefore I can persist, try something new and do something differently.” Lead study author and Oxford professor of clinical psychology Daniel Freeman told The Guardian.
So, is gameChange truly a game changer? After the six-week study, one patient said, “I’ve been able to make eye contact with people more, without feeling really anxious, I’ve been able to walk down a street without worrying about anyone walking towards me. I’m now able to go into a café. I feel much more confident about going on a bus. I just feel so much more confident than I was.”
If you’d like to see how gameChange works, you can watch a video all about it here: https://youtu.be/AdMLfdPBb60?si=zCgDqjHuDzsHXMRy