This article contains discussion of sexual violence and assault.
Imagine yourself in a bar, a watering hole of the most generic persuasion. There’s a pool table and a cluster of screens broadcasting the game, and while the music is lame and the lighting way too bright, the atmosphere doesn’t seem to be bothering anyone. On the dancefloor, a handful of people are swaying along to a monotonous beat.
At the bar, a tall blonde man is having a drink. He spots you, his gaze persistent, unwavering, and deeply unsettling. You would like nothing more than for him to stop.
Then you remove your virtual reality headset and his image fades away. He is not real.
This man—like every other patron in this fictional bar—is an avatar, part of a virtual environment created by researchers at the Université du Québec en Outaouais, near Ottawa. His creepy vibe is not my own interpretation: This character is designed to make the user uncomfortable. Eventually, he will rape them.
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At the Cyberpsychology Laboratory in Gatineau, Quebec, a small team of psychologists has created what they call the first virtual reality environment designed exclusively to help survivors of sexual assault.
“A woman who is traumatized by a sexual assault will often avoid parties or social events they associate with the attack,” explained psychologist Claudie Loranger, lead researcher behind this project. “The first step in getting over this is exposing yourself to the places you’re avoiding.”
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The author with Claudie Loranger. Image: Matt Joycey
For many survivors, this can be a daunting task. As such, Loranger and her team have devised virtual environments—a bar, which leads outside to a bus stop—to help ease patients into the process. Over the course of several sessions, people are able to progress through the scenes, triggering memories along the way. The final step is a VR version of a sexual assault.
The approach is based on a century-old method called exposure therapy, wherein those who’ve experienced trauma or people with phobias learn to cope by reliving the scarring incident or exposing themselves to what they fear. Exposure therapy is a well-established treatment option (with and without virtual reality) for veterans of war and many studies have shown the technique can alleviate symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, like anger and depression.
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Source: Motherboard