Treating Cynophobia With Augmented Reality Exposure Therapy

Specific phobia is an overwhelming fear of an object, place, situation, feeling or animal. For the treatment of specific phobias, exposure therapy is accepted as the most effective way to treat the patients and it is frequently used by psychiatrists and psychotherapists. To treat specific phobias using exposure therapy, the patients are exposed to their feared objects or situations in a safe and controlled environment while they are guided and accompanied by a therapist. It is not always possible to conduct in vivo treatment however, due to a number of reasons such as the feared objects being unavailable, cost-effectiveness, patients with extremely high anxiety etc. Results of the former studies revealed that specific phobias can be treated using Augmented Reality (AR) where patients are exposed to virtually created feared objects in real life context. There are limited studies that have been conducted to test the effectiveness of AR because it is a newly developed technology. Former studies used AR to treat phobia of smaller object such as fear of cockroaches, insects and spiders. The current study aims to test whether AR is a successful tool that can be utilized as a treatment option for people with specific disorders. More specifically, we aim to test the effectiveness of Augmented Reality Exposure Therapy (ARET) in the treatment of patients with cynophobia, i.e., fear of dogs.