Application of Virtual Reality Technology to Treatment of Social Anxiety

Participants will receive will receive 12 weeks of weekly CBT for Social Anxiety, including an intervention to improve conversational skills. The CBT for Social Anxiety will include "imaginal exposure", which is a way of using the imagination to work with situations that produce anxiety. Participants will also receive a mindfulness intervention.

The VR software, the Virtual Communicator (VC) consists of a highly realistic avatar that interacts with the client in one of several situations. The therapist controls its gestures, facial expressions, body movements, and speech and builds and saves modular combinations of gestures and facial expressions that can be assembled in any order to create a conversational interaction. The software has two adult avatars of ambiguous race/ethnicity, male and female. The VC is delivered without a headset interactively over the internet, on a secure, password-protected connection that increase access by not requiring headsets and not requiring the client to come to the office. The VC can be done in English, or in Spanish where appropriate. Treatment will be done for 12 sessions. The VR software is used to provide CBT exposures to reduce anxiety and also to practice social interactions.