VR Inner Child is a virtual reality solution to treat acrophobia (the fear of heights), developed with the help from psychologists to transport psychotherapy techniques to the virtual reality, adding real-time data tracking and gamification processes.

VR Inner child application is built applying the principles of transactional analysis that focuses on the free inner child ego state. The patient fights his fears by communicating with his or her inner child. Thus we needed to make it easy for the patient to identify himself or herself. For that we created a variety of children avatars.

Next to that during the session the child’s avatar can be used by the doctor to encourage or divert the patient’s attention. To be able to freely adjust to the situation, we created many predetermined commands for the child, like looking away, approaching, interacting, etc.

We chose New York as a location for it’s symbollic role as a city of skyscrapers and heights. To provoke a natural reaction, we aimed to create the city authentic and realistic, thus the 3D replica was built using Google maps.

During the session the therapist can track data about the patient’s heart rate, skin temperature, galvanic skin response, eye tracking heat maps in real time. In addition, they have the control of the child actions. For this purpose, we created simple dashboard where all actions and data is arranged in one layout.

The demo demonstrates the possibilities of VR - not just in theory but in practice - allowing therapists to create powerful simulations of scenarios that cause patients psychological discomfort.