Can the metaverse help with mental health?

What if you could learn from experience without the risk? Confront complex scenarios without the repercussions. Face your greatest fears and remain safe. Would you do it?

The immersive world of the metaverse and in particular virtual reality (VR), offers users the opportunity to experience emotionally and physically difficult scenarios without real world risk.?

Increasingly VR is being deployed by mental health professionals to support their clients' treatment. Specific real-world scenarios are replicated in VR and used to assist clients work through situations they find challenging. For example, those living with post-traumatic stress are building resilience against triggering events by facing them in a controlled VR environment.?Within the metaverse they can acclimatise and develop coping mechanisms, which having been practiced in VR they can use in the real world.

Another example is SocialWise VR, an UK & American based program that helps autistic young adults develop their emotional intelligence. SocialWise VR consists of a suite of interactive immersive scenarios that range from dealing with authority figures, to going on a first date, to being at a party and offered drugs. Within these various situations the client is then presented three different responses and depending on their answer, they will receive a either neutral, negative or positive response.?

As the client progresses through the different VR scenarios, the therapist oversees their experience via an iPad, which is linked to the VR device. The therapists iPad shows where their client is looking and what responses they select, as well as tracking their progress through the program. This gives therapists a unique look into their patients' development and provides them with a tool to support their clients developing techniques and strategies to navigate daily life and practise situations which they find complex and challenging, without the emotional risk of the real world.

This principal of scenario-based learning to build emotional intelligence, is also used in training programs for the aged care and health industry. Working with Western District Health Services and Southwest TAFE, Start Beyond built an immersive learning program in which the user is placed in a variety of different workplace scenarios that involve caring for an elderly man living with dementia. Within the VR experience, depending on how the user responds to the elderly man's behaviour will either escalate or de-escalate the situation. By facing these complex situations in VR, health and aged care workers can better understand how their actions can create a positive or negative situation.

Through practising these challenging scenarios in a virtual environment, they are better equipped to face the complexity of the real world, offer a higher level of care, and create a positive and healthy environment for patient and carer alike.?

The benefits and opportunities of the metaverse to help with mental health related issues encompasses all facets of the medical industry, offering a powerful and effective training tool and support platform for both patients and their health care professionals.

This, however, is just a small snapshot of the diverse and far-reaching benefits which virtual reality and the metaverse can provide. The principals behind building resilience, gaining emotional intelligence, and unlocking empathy through scenario-based learning, are not limited to the medical industry, as these skills are universal.?

From customer service call centres to executives managing unconscious bias and microaggressions in the workplace, mental heath is a fundamental issue and through the metaverse and immersive learning VR programs, the real world experience can be gained without the emotional risk; thereby helping people see the world differently and gain knowledge that sticks.

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