Psychotherapy is also about imparting knowledge. Think of psychoeducation and the many dialogue sessions that help your patients learn about themselves or external influences.
Findings from learning psychology can help to make this knowledge transfer more effective. This is because there are different ways of absorbing information: listening, reading, watching, doing it yourself and some of these in combination.
The most common way in which patients absorb information in psychotherapy is by listening. However, after reading, this is the second weakest way of absorbing information. The probability that the content heard is retained is only 20% (only 10% for reading). However, retaining the content would be desirable. After all, much of this information is intended to help people to adopt new behaviour in difficult situations. These are often stressful and emotionalising situations. Here, the probability that learned content can be recalled and steer one’s own behaviour in a desired direction could decrease even further.
In learning psychology, the most effective way of absorbing information is to do it yourself. The probability of retention is given as 90%! In the school context, this realisation has long since led to as many interactive units as possible instead of just frontal teaching. In psychotherapy, however, this is rarely taken into account. However, interactive units can also provide a remedy here. For example, role plays, exposures outside in real situations or exposures in virtual situations with VR glasses in the practice or treatment room.
If, for example, you explain to a patient in psychoeducation that it is merely a symptom that when you look down you get the feeling that you are about to fall, then there is only a 20% chance that the patient will remember this in her next height situation and remain calm and master this situation, . If instead she has this experience herself in VR goggles while slowly walking across a board balancing at great heights, remaining stable and walking confidently forwards and backwards, then the probability increases to 90% that her everyday situations will be easier because of this learning experience.
The same applies to patients with addiction. A common relapse situation occurs when, once standing at the checkout with a bottle, the feeling arises that there is no way out anymore and that one must buy the product. In conversations, it is then explained that it is still possible to return the product, even if it has already been scanned. Your patient will nod in agreement. But what if you let them actively practice exactly this several times?
In a therapeutic virtual reality scenario in which they stand at the supermarket checkout, return the bottle, and say to the cashier: “Sorry, I don’t want to buy this after all.”
Here too, the probability that your patient will remember this in a similar everyday situation could rise to 90%.
Another interesting mode of information processing is the combination of hearing and seeing, as it occurs in group therapy. When our VR system is used in an alcohol therapy group, only one to three patients per session will actively undergo the learning experience using the VR headset. The other group members follow on a screen what the patient sees and does in the VR environment.
When hearing and observing are combined, the retention rate increases to a notable 50%.
If the therapies are aimed at coping with difficult situations, we believe that learning new behaviours plays a key role and should be supplemented by interactive sessions.
Our users consistently confirm the very high quality and realism of the 3D graphics. Unfortunately, this quality cannot be fully conveyed through simple images on the website.
The screenshots shown are intended only to illustrate and demonstrate the content.
Our users consistently confirm the very high quality and realism of the 3D graphics. Unfortunately, this quality cannot be fully conveyed through simple images on the website.
The screenshots shown are intended only to illustrate and demonstrate the content.
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