After six sessions, the psychologists reported that the patient (whose identity they withheld) experienced reductions of 83 percent in symptoms of depression and 90 percent in symptoms of PTSD. Strapped into VR headgear, the woman experienced a simulation of what it was like to be in lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001.

Using news footage and interviews, Difede and Hunter Hoffman, director of the VR Analgesia Research Center at the University of Washington, developed a virtual world that modeled the sights and sounds of lower Manhattan at the time of the attacks. JoAnn Difede, director of the Program for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Studies at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, realized that VR might enable the woman to become more emotionally engaged in recalling her memories from that fateful day. Traditional behavioral therapy, in which she was prompted to recall her experience of 9/11, did not seem to be helping.Įnter virtual reality. For months, she was tormented by the horrific images she’d seen. Nearly 3,000 people died in the 9/11 attacks, but there was a psychological toll as well: long after that day, at least 10,000 firefighters, police officers, and onlookers in NYC were estimated to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

BOOK REVIEW - “Experience on Demand: What Virtual Reality Is, How It Works, and What It Can Do,” by Jeremy Bailenson (W.W.

Bailenson experience on demand