Using Virtual Reality to treat paranoia

The use of immersive virtual reality to understand and treat paranoia - severe mistrust of other people - is being studied here. Immersive virtual reality creates interactive computer-generated worlds, which substitute real world sensory perceptions with digitally generated ones, producing the sensation of actually being in life-sized new environments. In this study, individuals with paranoia entered everyday social situations (such as train rides or lifts) that they found difficult. Guided by the best psychological science techniques, they are helped to learn that they can trust other people. This learning in the virtual world transfers to the real world. In this image, a participant is wearing a head-mounted display (an nVisor SX111), which presents the computer-generated world. She is also wearing an optical motion capture suit, enabling her own body to be seen while in the virtual world. The markers on the suit are tracked by the infrared cameras in the laboratory room. In the image a long exposure captures the individual immersed and exploring the virtual reality scene. The VR lab to study paranoia was originally funded by a Wellcome Trust Fellowship award to Prof Daniel Freeman, who leads the O-CAP team.