Using Augmented Reality To Treat Cockroach Phobia

RichDiesal writes "In this blog post, I describe a new use for augmented reality — treating people for cockroach phobia. A recent paper in the academic journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking discusses a system where people suffering from cockroach phobia sit at a desk with a virtual reality headset. The headset has a camera on the front so that patients see the desk they're sitting at — but covered in cockroaches. In the study, researchers managed to elicit a fear response to virtual cockroaches similar to what would be experienced with real cockroaches. Sounds like a little slice of hell to me."

It does work

[JanneM]

Well, both flooding and gradual accomodation certainly works to get rid of a phobia (though it will tendency to return in some situations). You have to be really motivated to get rid of your phobia to even consider this kind of treatment, though, and for most sufferers (I'm one of them) their phobia just isn't bothersome or debilitating enough to go through with this.

Is This A Bad Phobia To Have?

[Dunx]

Some phobias are disabling - agoraphobia, for instance, or a sufficiently developed fear of heights. Some phobias are inconvenient like fear of the number thirteen.

But fear of cockroaches? I call that healthy!

Unless your job requires you to go into cockroach-infested places and not freak out, I can't see any serious downside to cockroach phobia.

How about clowns?

[kolbe]

My wife has an absolute fear and hatred for clowns, so much so that her Mother once sent her to clown school in order to try to shake the fear. Alas, I marry her and get stuck with the "fear" and cannot go anywhere or anything with our kids that might involve... clowns.

So, I have to ask if this augmented reality system might work for other fears such as this? Perhaps make it so an image of a clown appears on the faces of all that are gazed upon?

I have to wonder if it would cause more stress than cures though.

my cockroach phobia story

[oddTodd123]

I got over my cockroach phobia pretty quickly after moving into my new house. They were coming into my house and I traced them back to the hole in the ground where the water meter is. My solution, not wanting to get too close, was to pour poison into hole. Ten minutes later my driveway, garage, and front yard were covered with dozens of stunned cockroaches that had crawled out of their makeshift cave looking for some other dark place to live, which included the firewood pile, every corner and edge of the building, and under my car tires. I had to round them up one by one (using a broom and dustpan!) and get rid of them. I collected them in a bucket, drowned them in more poison, and buried them. Not so afraid of cockroaches any more. But they still gross me out!

There are better, quicker ways to phobia relief

[nido]

I once met a young woman at a late-summer outdoor gathering who twitched every so often. I looked closer, and it seemed that she didn't like bees. I inquired, and indeed, she'd been terrified of flying yellow bugs ever since she and her sister were attacked by a swarm when she was 12 years old.

It'd been 10+ years, she'd been to counseling, etc, but still no relief.

I was an amateur people-fixer then (this was 7 years ago), so I offered to help... After fumbling through a few different strategies, I remembered a certain variety of energy psychology ("acupressure for the emotions"). I walked her through that procedure. The woman felt the bee phobia as a clenching feeling around her heart (when you think about how terrible cockroaches are, where do you feel it in your body? Usually it's somewhere, some people are disconnected from such feelings).

She got rather giggly as the feeling moved out of her left arm. When it had left her body completely, I said "okay, I guess we're done now", and we went our separate ways.

She sought me out 20 or 30 minutes later: "Look, I got stung!" She was excited that her phobic response, which she suffered with for 10+ years, was gone.

Energy Psychology -- Gary Craig's Emotional Freedom Technique is the best-known -- is extremely effective. I've used it with many people since that first woman years ago, and consistently get excellent results. It doesn't fix every problem instantly, but many people find it better than anything else, and research [energypsyc...search.com] is slowly being done.

Fishopolis anyone?

[iamhassi]

So this is Rivia Fishopolis [clickgamer.com] but for cockroaches.

It's for Windows Mobile cellphones with cameras, and it displays what the camera sees with fish swimming around and crosshairs to shoot the fish. [youtube.com] If you move your phone it continues to show whatever the camera sees, and the fish "move" into the path of the crosshairs.

Shame there isn't a better video of it because the game is top-notch, I've literally spun in circles trying to shoot fish. Glad to see someone's using the idea for medical purposes.

Re:I thought we already had LSD

[dogmatixpsych]

You might not be able to overdose (although I'm sure someone can) but LSD does result in "bad trips" for a significant proportion of people. The psychological trauma can last for years. You cannot prevent a bad trip, they can hit people using LSD at random. LSD is not benign, no drugs are (note: "if used responsibly and in good company" - the key is that drugs are almost never used responsibly, at least illicit drugs are usually not; that's not just because they are illegal either, although that does factor in to their abuse. Alcohol is not illegal but it is abused widely; same with tobacco). Responsible use is better than irresponsible use but no use is better than any use (IMO).

Re:In other news

[Iron Condor]

Virtual reality is virtually real.

Is it now? I seem to be getting rather mixed messages.

If it is possible to desensitize folks from strong reactions to roaches using exposure to virtual roaches, why is it somehow absurd to suggest that people are desensitized from strong reactions to violence by exposure to violence in video games? Just asking this question usually gets me modded to hell and back (usually troll or flamebait) but I've yet to see a coherent argument supporting such an odd schism. Virtual exposure to heights, desensitizes people who have aversions against height. Vitual crowds get people to be less fearful of real ones. Yet virtual exposure to bloodbaths cannot possibly desensitize people against real ones - and anybody who dares suggest otherwise must somehow be an evil video games-hater.