Founded last year, this new Belfast company wants to use virtual reality to make “fear less scary, the most human therapy and the most accessible support.”
With millions of people around the world who suffer at least one phobia, there is a good possibility that you suffer from a phobia yourself or know some who do it.
As an anxiety disorder, a phobia is defined as an extreme or irrational fear or aversion of an object or situation.
Some common phobias range from fear of spiders and clowns to heights and even social situations. Phobias can trigger an extreme reaction depending on gravity, and can be difficult to handle, as special if the source of a person’s phobia is something inevitable in their daily lives.
But how is it a phobia? Of the most successful treatment it is through exposure therapy, however, some may not access or pay this treatment.
Fortunately, our start -up provides an alternative treatment method using technology.
Rephobia is a virtual reality (VR) platform directed by the therapist that helps people overcome their phobias through a safe guided exposure therapy.
Rephobia, a student at the University of Queen, Liam Harte, uses immersive virtual reality scenarios built around real psychological frameworks, all of which are supported by a qualified therapist.
“It’s about making fear less scary, the most human therapy and the most accessible support,” says Harte.
As begins
As Harte explains to Siliconrepublic.com, the idea for Rephobia was born from his technical history of virtual reality research and his personal connection with mental health.
The computer student has lived with an obsessive compulsive disorder (TOC) during most of his life.
“Rephobia began as a solo project, combining that live experience with technical knowledge to build a new therapy platform,” he says. “The refobia is based on my own experiences with OCD and anxiety, which makes the mission deeply significant, but also demanding. Balance that personal connection with the objectivity necessary to manage a business has taken time and reflection.”
As Harte explains, the new company based in Belfast is aimed at those who suffer phobias who cannot access the necessary treatment. The initial approach to younger adults between the ages of 18 and 35 who are “technology experts, open to digital mental health and currently unattended.”
“Many cannot access or pay exposure therapy, and even less they want to face their fears in the real world immediately,” he says. “By combining immersive virtual reality with the support of the therapist, she reports to sacrifice a middle ground: effective, profitable and much more accessible clinic.”
How does it work?
As Harte explains, the Rephobia platform works in the treatment of phobias in a controlled and step -by -step process.
“In essence, we recreate fear stages of the real world in the unit using VR headphones, giving users a sense of presence that is powerful enough to trigger anxiety but sure to handle it,” he explains. “Each experience is built with contributions from the therapist and based on principles of cognitive behavioral therapy (TCC), a specifically graduated exhibition, where users gradually face their fear in small management steps of Managybey.
“We scratch user progress and physiological response in the session, and therapists can guide experience in real time.”
It tells us that the new company is currently developing its own library of phobia environments, ranging from speaking in public to spiders, each with levels of intensity differentity and customization options.
“Technology allows users to falsify, repeat or adjust the difficulty, everything while maintaining in a therapeutic space.”
According to Harte, the Rephobia platform differs from the “VR of self -help applications” of the way it is designed to be used together with a trained therapist.
“We are also aware of accessibility, ensuring that the platform works in widely aviaxable and affordable VR headphones, which makes effective support more accessible to more people,” he says. “Our long -term vision includes information based on data and adaptive environments adapted to the progress of each user.
“The objective is to make evidence based on phobia based as accessible and human as possible. We want the refobia to become the reference platform for the mental health support of virtual reality directed by therapist with phobias, but expanding anxiety disorders.”
The trip so far
Despite having been founded last year, “things are moving quickly” for refobia, coordination to Harte. Until now, the new company has secured multiple financing rounds without shares and recently won a subsidy of Unity For Humanity, which recognizes the innovators that the unit’s engine to address global challenges.
“While we are Pre-Voorue, we have had a strong early interest of clinics and universities, and we are only starting.”
In addition to this, the rephobia team has bone growth. Harte tells us that he recently brought a member of the team with experience in psychology and research aligned with TCC to help the clinical content of the new company and ensure that everything is ethical and based on evidence.
Currently, the team is working on its minimum viable product and plans to try its first phobia environments this summer.
“In the long term, we are able to associate with health systems, universities and insurers so that this technology is widely available, affordable and scalable,” says Harte. “It’s about giving people confidence to face what scares them, and prove that therapy can be immersive, empowering and even a bit beautiful.”
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