Virtual reality and social skills training with researchers from Aix-Marseille University.

Doctoral student in psychology within the Social Psychology Laboratory of the University of Aix-Marseille, I work with Dr Del-Monte, Ms Fauvarque, and Professor Graziani on virtual reality in the therapeutic context.

In this context, I have had the pleasure of working for 3 years with software C2Care. The plurality and personalization of environments allowed me to have the freedom to direct my research in the desired direction without technological barriers. Virtual reality no longer has to prove its effectiveness in the therapeutic field. Whether in the treatment of phobias of all kinds, the cognitive rehabilitation or even relaxation, this constantly evolving tool, is a real asset for professionals and researchers. In addition, therapy is not always very engaging, but the fun and novel nature of virtual reality is a significant argument that attracts and motivates patients and participants alike for the field of research.

Generally presented as great supports for exposure therapy, we wanted to divert environments from their primary objective by focusing on a less exploited part of psychotherapy: social skills training. And yet... in many psychiatric pathologies, from social anxiety to personality disorders including schizophrenia or autism, the acquisition of social skills is often lacking. These problems in interpersonal relationships generate difficulties in the spheres of private, social and professional life which are added to the other symptoms that the patient must face. Intervention in these areas most often involves role-playing in the context of therapeutic groups or simulated situations in the therapist's office.

Although these modalities remain interesting, they have the drawback of being too far removed from the situations that patients experience in their daily lives. Unfortunately, it is often complicated, if not impossible, to mobilize external individuals who agree to play the role of social interlocutors in the context of role-playing games.

This is where virtual reality can be exploited in all its capabilities. The plurality of environments, but also their controllability, and their customization are all elements which make it a relevant basis for these role-playing games. The software offers a variety of very relevant situations: school situations, or even situations requiring speaking in front of a varied audience. This personalization makes it possible to scale the difficulty (such as for example the attitude of the interlocutors, the number of people present in an audience) which is extremely interesting for research and for therapeutic practice. We were able to offer exactly the same situation to all our participants and ensure the validity of our results. With a real situation, the uncontrollable variables would have been too numerous to allow us to validate our hypotheses without fear that they would be more responsible for the results than the variables we chose to put in place.

Based on the environments provided for the exposure of patients affected by glossophobia and school phobia, we worked on how to stimulate social behaviors in these environments. In other words, we worked to increase social behaviors towards virtual characters (like the audience) present in the virtual environment.

Without revealing too much at the moment, the results are encouraging and offer us interesting perspectives. Being able to stimulate these behaviors in virtual reality would allow patients to feel more confident in implementing these behaviors in their daily life, which will improve their social sphere and therefore social support, and in fact, their quality of life.

Article written by Lisa Cerdà – Doctoral student in Psychology – Social Psychology Laboratory of the University of Aix-Marseille