The goal of this project is the development of a therapeutic tool designated for working with automatic negative thoughts in anxiety disorders, especially in generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), anxiety-depressive disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) with predominance of obsessions.
The therapeutic tool is based on a technique of "worry time" – commonly used in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) – transferred to a virtual environment. This technique consists of deliberate, time-limited exposure to instructive (annoying) thoughts. The VR application called "Dark room" presents a virtual environment of a dark room in which these thoughts are exposed. It enables the creation of a secure personal profile where you can upload your thoughts and then let them affect you. Thoughts arrive (fly towards you) in the chosen order and time interval. It is also possible to set other parameters in the application, such as the number of repetitions of thoughts.
As part of the research, we focus on comparing standard methods such as "worry time" with virtual alternatives. We monitor the usability, advantages and disadvantages of both variants and the effect on selected psychological variables (e.g., anxiety).
The project is being developed with the financial support of the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TACR), project No. G043-04.
