The effectiveness of a multiple components therapy regarding claustrophobia and involving virtual reality (VR) will be demonstrated through a trial which immersed six claustrophobic patients in multiple context-graded enclosed virtual environments (VE) using affordable VR apparatus and software. The results of the questionnaires and behavior tests exhibited a significant reduction in fear towards the enclosed space and quality of life improvement. Such gains were maintained at 6-month follow-up. Presence score indicated the patients felt immersed and present inside the game editor VE.

This article examines the growth in research on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which has expanded dramatically since its introduction in 1980. There are now over 350 articles indexed in Medline each year that refer to PTSD in their title. PTSD accounted for 16% of anxiety disorder research in the early 1980s, growing to one third by 2005.

Effective treatment strategies exist for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), however, many individuals do not receive professional help. Media-delivered self-help is increasingly sought to narrow the treatment gap. Previous studies included personal contact with a clinician, making it difficult to delineate the specific effect of the medium. We developed "myMCT" for OCD, a (meta-)cognitive manual for self-application. We conducted a randomized-controlled trial with 128 OCD participants receiving myMCT versus psychoeducation, adopting low-threshold recruitment approaches without any face-to-face contact. Diagnoses were verified with telephone interviews paralleling online surveys at pre, post (4 weeks) and follow-up (6 months). Participants benefited significantly from both interventions. MyMCT showed stronger reduction of OCD symptoms on Y-BOCS total score (p=.023, η2partial=.04), obsessions (p=.002, η2partial=.07), depression (BDI: p=.022, η2partial=.04), and cognitive biases (OBQ: p=.016, η2partial=.05) after 4 weeks. After 6 months, individuals with myMCT showed decreased levels of cognitive biases (OBQ). The current study provides further evidence that myMCT is a promising approach to target OCD-related psychopathology as mere self-help. Although effect sizes were below those usually found in (therapist-)guided self-help, myMCT could be of value for the large subgroup of individuals without treatment.