Increasing self-compassion in young people through virtual reality

Abstract

As part of our proposal, we aim to:

 provide increased practice/exposure and target a younger audience  increase the chance of generalisation to everyday life  employ better VR visualisation, e.g. assigning more realistic hand gestures and facial expressions to the characters in the virtual world  target young adults (18-25), as in most countries mental healthcare services for children and young people do not provide satisfactory care, and the gap between need and access is broadest for those aged 12-25 years.

Mental health conditions pose a major challenge to healthcare providers and society at large. According to the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand, one in five people will develop a serious mood disorder, including depression, at some time in their life. Early intervention can have a significant positive impact on a person’s prognosis, particularly important in affecting outcomes for young people. Co-designed solutions to improve resilience and well-being in young people have specifically been recognised as part of the National Suicide Prevention Strategy and the New Zealand Health Strategy. Innovative interventions that support long-term change for individuals are urgently needed.

Self-compassion/self-criticism constitutes a protective/risk factor with regard to developing and maintaining depression; particularly in young people. Self-criticism is one of the major psychological factors, defined as the dominant response style of negative evaluation and judgment of self to perceived failure. One effective method to increase self-compassion and reduction in depression may be to address self-criticism through compassion-focused therapy.

Virtual Reality (VR) in Health is an emerging field. It is becoming more commonplace with the advent of affordable consumer head-mounted devices, and has significant potential for the understanding, assessment, and treatment of mental health problems. It can provide a non-threatening, zero risk environment that allows for free exploring of different strategies. We propose to take this new technology and codesign Virtual Reality scenarios with young people, which focuses on real-world situations that impact the sample group most and assists them to view these experiences with a self-compassionate lens. This is achieved by being taught compassionate manners of responding to a scenario and by switching perspective. We provide an overview of an initial proof-of-concept study, propose a study in different social settings and highlight key points for discussion pertaining to technology use, data safety, privacy, and considerations for addressing depressive symptoms necessary to advance this work