By Matteo Valles at Grove VR

3 years ago, our good friend Alex passed away suddenly from drowning due to a shallow water blackout. While the loss was unexpected and painful for us, it was even more so for Alex’s twin brother, Leo. After seeing how it affected Leo, we were inspired to start Grove.

Mental health is only one area that we think VR can play a big role in and we are excited to see what may come in the future
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When Alex passed away, Leo had now lost his best friend and there was nobody around him that could fully relate to that situation. While his friends were there to support him in any way they could, he never got much out of it because they couldn’t possibly understand what he was going through. A few months later though, he found a group called The Twinless Twins Support Group. It was an organization brought together by the experience of losing a twin sibling. Naturally, Leo wanted to meet with the other group members and did so at one of the regional meetings. Needless to say, being around others that had lost their own twin and understood his pain was a profound experience for Leo. He continued to go to meetings whenever he could, whether they were smaller regional meetups in Florida or the large national annual meetup. All of them being just as helpful as the last.

When Alex passed away, Leo had now lost his best friend and there was nobody around him that could fully relate to that situation
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The only problem was that losing a twin is not a common occurrence and thus The Twinless Twins meetings are typically held infrequently and far away from many of its members. For example, the regional meetings are only held once every few months and are usually in a different state than many of its members. While members stay in contact with other support group members between meetings, it is typically just through text or group messages which are helpful but perils compared to meeting in person. That led my brother and me to start toying with the idea of creating something that lets people meet in virtual reality to overcome these issues. Thus Grove was born.

Now over a year since the inception of our idea, the platform is almost complete. Grove allows people to make support groups in virtual reality based around any topic they would like. Issues from depression, anxiety, addiction, loss of a loved one, and much more can all have support groups held within Grove. While the initial idea started by focusing on connecting people across wide distances, we soon discovered many other benefits that the platform provides.

Grove allows people to make support groups in virtual reality based around any topic they would like
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When attending a support group there are often many barriers, like distance in the case of Twinless Twins Support Groups. Other barriers though might be the fear of being known, transportation or membership costs, or not knowing where to find a group. Fortunately, using VR helps overcome the fear of being known due to the use of avatars. While avatars provide a feeling of truly being present with each other, you are able to control what your avatar looks like and thus, what others see of you. You can choose different genders, hairstyles, eye colors, or anything else. Your name is also never given out because Grove only requires an email address to sign up.

Another crucial benefit is that there is no cost associated with attending meetings, whether in transportation cost or membership costs. The platform is offered entirely free to ensure that there is no cost barrier for someone seeking a support group. As long as a user has internet and a headset they can attend from anywhere including their home.

There is no cost associated with attending meetings
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As long as a user has internet and a headset they can attend from anywhere including their home
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Lastly, Grove makes it simple to find the support group you need. By bringing a variety of support groups and topics to a central location, it is easy to type in the topic you are looking for (ex. depression, addiction, etc.) and find all the groups related to that topic and when they meet.

Benefits like these and many more have driven us to continue creating Grove so that people like Leo and many others can have consistent and easy access to the best support groups possible. And now with a year of development complete and only a couple months until launching the platform on Oculus headsets, we are launching a Kickstarter campaign to push Grove across the finish line. While Grove is offered entirely free, some money is needed to launch the platform including development, headsets, marketing, and legal fees. Once the Kickstarter is complete, we will be able to finish testing the platform, gathering feedback from early users, and launch in February 2020.

Benefits like these and many more have driven us to continue creating Grove so that people like Leo and many others can have consistent and easy access to the best support groups possible
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By bringing a variety of support groups and topics to a central location, it is easy to type in the topic you are looking for
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Once launched, Grove will be one of the few apps on the Oculus store that are not game- or entertainment-focused. However, we hope that as VR improves and it becomes more widespread, that more and more companies will begin creating more real-world applications for VR. Mental health is only one area that we think VR can play a big role in and we are excited to see what may come in the future.

Once launched, Grove will be one of the few apps on the Oculus store that are not game- or entertainment-focused
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If you have struggled with mental health in the past or know someone who has and would like to support Grove’s Kickstarter campaign, you can do so here.

The post Supporting Mental Health Through VR appeared first on Tech Trends.

Limbix is building up immersive content that therapists can use to treat phobias, depression and anxiety.

There are over 300 peer-reviewed studies that show VR is an effective tool for treating mental health disorders such as anxiety, depression, trauma, and addiction.

It’s no wonder, therefore, to see a host of companies developing therapeutic content that leverages immersive technology. From helping passengers chill out during long-haul flights to AI-powered virtual therapists, this is a very promising space indeed.

It’s no wonder we're seeing a host of companies developing therapeutic content leveraging immersive technology
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There are over 300 peer-reviewed studies that show VR is an effective tool for treating mental health disorders such as anxiety, depression, trauma, and addiction
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One such company is Limbix, which has been collaborating with experts through academic research partnerships to create content for use by therapists in a broad range of applications such as Exposure Therapy, Mindfulness, Experiential Education and Skills Training.

They raised $3M in funding so far in a seed round led by Sequoia Capital. Since then, the Palo Alto-based company has managed to establish an impressive host of partnerships with high-profile organizations and researchers to guide their content creation process and document the efficiency of the VR experiences they set out to create.

“After over a year of research and interviews, we have not only confirmed interest in VR but also learned there are opportunities for the technology to support therapy and patient care in other ways,” says Elise Ogle, a researcher who previously worked at Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, designing experiences such as the highly acclaimed Becoming Homeless, before taking on her current role as Program Manager at Limbix earlier this year.

In the mental health space, Ogle explains, there are fundamental issues with access to care and stigma that can keep people from receiving the care that they need. “VR is an innovative technology that patients are excited to use and can serve as a tool that healthcare providers can use to improve patient care,” she adds.

Limbix has been collaborating with experts through academic research partnerships to create content for use by therapists
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One example of what this can look like is a project focusing on adolescent depression intervention, which came about when Harvard researchers found that web-based intervention methods could be very effective at decreasing depressive symptoms.

The researchers at the Laboratory for Youth Mental Health at Harvard then wanted to find out how VR intervention would compare to this, and partnered with Limbix – as well as researchers from other institutions such as the Mood Disorders Laboratory at University of Texas at Austin and the Lab for Scalable Mental Health at Sony Brook University – to develop an experience which, in a single-session, provides intervention by teaching the subjects to adopt a growth mind-set which has been found helpful in overcoming depression.

Researchers at the Laboratory for Youth Mental Health at Harvard wanted to find out how VR would compare to web-based intervention
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“The goal of this experience is not only to bring insight into depression — and let adolescents know they aren’t alone in their struggles — but also to teach adolescents how to process and work through their feelings and challenges,” says Ogle, explaining that they are now nearly finished with obtaining IRB approval and will be starting a clinical study early in the new year.

Another clinical study due to begin in January is led by Dr. Barr Taylor from Stanford University/Palo Alto University and Dr. Michelle Newman from Penn State, who were also using VR as a part of exposure therapy treatment for patients with social anxiety.

“We focused on 2 different types of social scenarios that a person with social anxiety would likely have to experience in person, but could benefit from exposure to and practice with these situations in VR. In these scenarios, as they practice interacting with others in these social situations, they will learn to process their feelings of anxiety,” says Ogle.

Patients in the VR therapy group will be exposed to scenarios ordered according to their own personal ‘fear hierarchy’ by working their way from what makes them least anxious, then gradually upping the tension to what makes them most anxious.

As they practice interacting with others in social situations, patients learn to process their feelings of anxiety
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Patients in the VR therapy group will be exposed to scenarios ordered according to their own personal ‘fear hierarchy’
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The two situations they initially designed were a job interview and a social gathering with strangers. For each situation they filmed a number of scenarios to be used by the researchers to build that fear hierarchy for each patient.

Examples of the first type of situation included answering tough questions in front of varying interviewers, participating in a group interview, and a more casual interview, while situation two required patients to get a stranger’s attention at a party, send food back they hadn’t ordered, and answer standard ‘getting to know you’ questions from a stranger. The plan is to continue building a comprehensive content library of VR experiences to aid the treatment of a broad spectrum of mental health disorders

As well as having health benefits, this immersive technology also represents a sizeable market opportunity
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The plan is to build a content library of VR experiences to aid the treatment of a broad spectrum of mental health disorders
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As well as the health benefits, this technology also represents a sizeable market opportunity, as it could be deployed across a range of patient care areas such as Behavioral Health Centers, Clinics, Addiction Treatment Centers, and even schools. Limbix have already started opening up product access to paying customers and will use their feedback to guide further development as they scale.

This article originally appeared on VRScout

Therapists Using VR To Treat Mental Health Issues via @alicebonasio https://t.co/iPi1ApezQw pic.twitter.com/4X3zJ34Plq

— VRScout (@VRScout) December 27, 2018

For companies looking to get into Immersive technologies our VR Consultancy service offers comprehensive support in strategic deployment of Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Virtual Reality Improving Mental Health appeared first on Tech Trends.