Real phobias in a virtual space

There’s always someone who’s afraid of spiders. To demonstrate how treatment works, Gerwin Kramer, developed different virtual spiders, which – as in real life – can walk about or drop down from above. By having people remain in the space until their fear reaches a peak, you can show them that their anxiety will gradually diminish.

The great advantage of this kind of therapy is the amount of manipulation you can do. What’s more, in real life you can’t predict how a spider will behave but you can manipulate the movements of a virtual spider. You can make things a little more predictable, which makes therapy easier.