Cyber-therapy: The use of artificial intelligence in psychological practice

Cyber Therapy is a research project based on the relationship between Computer Science and Psychology. We are working on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to severe traffic accidents using a virtual reality driving simulator and ECG, EDA and breathing sensors. With the help of virtual reality (VR) our goal is to build one software that can process the user’s biofeedback signals - heart rate, body temperature, state of tension, etc. - in real time, to make the phobic stimulus autonomous. To this purpose, we developed a platform capable of adapting the phobic stimulus based on the user’s biofeedback signals. We believe that this human-computer integrated system could be useful to patients as it would allow them to face fear autonomously, and to the psychotherapist, as it would allow a real time - physiologically based - knowledge of fear symptoms severity able to promote a timely and more appropriate program of intervention.