The main objective of the project is to investigate whether Virtual environments can invoke anxiety in people suffering from needle phobia. Presence plays a role in the eliciting of anxiety Needle Phobia is the extreme and unreasonable anxiety experienced when an injection will be present, and because of the extreme fear, the avoidance of such situations.
Exposure therapy is the most common method used to treat phobias.
Here, the patient is exposed to a hierarchy of situations related to the fearful stimuli, ranging from the least fearful to the most fearful. It has however, never been used as a treatment method for needle phobia. This project centres around the use of VRE therapy on needle phobia and the role that presence plays in the level of anxiety elicited.