2014 ISRII 7th Scientific Meeting

Anxiety disorders with a prevalence or more than 10% belong to the group of mental disorders which causes most personal and societal burdens. Therefore, practicable and easy accessible effective interventions are urgently needed for prevention and treatment. Virtual reality (VR) and internet interventions offer new and promising approaches to overcome this challenge. In addition, since VR offers new possibilities to study the underlying mechanisms of anxiety disorders with experimental but still ecologically valid paradigms, VR studies will greatly advance our understanding of the disorder leading to new treatment approaches. After introducing VR technology, I will review existing VR treatment approaches, their efficacy, and new developments with a focus on own studies. Then, I will briefly summarize VR studies on conditioning models of anxiety disorders and how this knowledge may lead to improved treatments. Finally, I will discuss possibilities to use the internet for prevention and treatment of anxiety disorders, and how VR and internet technology may merge to further improve treatment of anxiety disorders.