Virtual reality treatment could lead to better treatment outcomes says youth mental health leader

Rolling out a revolutionary virtual reality service to enhance youth mental health treatment will be among the aims of a leading research centre.

Rolling out a revolutionary virtual reality service to enhance youth mental health treatment will be among the aims of a leading research centre following an injection of government funding.

Youth mental health service Orygen will use some of the $7 million it will receive from the state government to investigate how virtual reality could be used in the treatment of anxiety, depression and other conditions.

Orygen executive director Patrick McGorry said staff at the organisation were assessing ways young people could be put in mock situations to help treat their mental health concerns.

“The therapy would be enhanced by this visual and experiential component so that you’re not just talking about stuff but you are living it,” Professor McGorry said.

“For example if you’re paranoid on a tram and you think everyone is looking at you; the virtual reality situation would place you in that situation visually in the therapy session, you are immersed in it, and you are able to have a dialogue about it with the therapist.

“It would actually deal with their stress, correct the false perception that is going on, and make the person more comfortable with the real life situation.”

The funding for Orygen is part of a $868m statewide spend by the state government to fix the “broken” mental health sector.

It includes $492m for 120 mental health beds across Victoria including 16 in Geelong;

$152m for mental health services in direct response to the COVID-19 pandemic; and $21.4m for the expansion of the Hospital Outreach Post-Suicidal Engagement service that offers individual, intensive and one-on-one support.

Professor McGorry suggested virtual reality treatment could be tailored to specific conditions. “It’s kind of exciting the potential of it. You could make it available in all service settings once we get the system working and translatable.

“It’s almost doable right now. It’s an implementation thing because the research studies have already been done up to a point.

“It would make the whole process of having treatment much more vivid and much more engaging.”

Professor McGorry said other aims using the money would be to create better front end services for youth mental health care.

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He said the concept of a “friendship bench” developed in Zimbabwe should be adapted to Australia by putting a bench in public places were people in need would sit and be met by treatment professionals.

Professor McGorry said the government’s investment in Orygen would increase it’s ability to develop innovative and effective youth mental health care.

“There has been a significant increase in mental health impacts across the youth population due to COVID-19, and previous modelling undertaken by Orygen indicated that the crisis would result in a surge of common mental health issues of up to 30 per cent among young people in the coming years.”

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Originally published as Virtual reality treatment could lead to better treatment outcomes says youth mental health leader