What is the future of psychotherapy? How will future changes impact on psychotherapy, psychologists, and our patients? Recently, a panel of 62 psychotherapy experts using Delphi methodology tried to answer these questions. (1)

According to their answers, only 18 out of the 38 therapeutic interventions analyzed were predicted to increase in the next decade. In particular, the use of Virtual Reality (VR) and computerized therapies were ranked third and fifth, preceded only by homework assignments (first), relapse prevention (second), and problem solving techniques (fourth).

On the other side, traditional psychotherapy interventions such as hypnosis (32nd), paradoxical
interventions (33rd), or dream interpretation (35th) were predicted to drastically diminish.

Even if these data may be provocative to some psychotherapists, there is no doubt that rapid and
far-reaching technological advances are changing the ways in which people relate, communicate, and live. Technologies that were hardly used 10 years ago, such as the internet, e-mail, and video teleconferencing are becoming familiar methods for diagnosis, therapy, education, and training.

However, the possible impact of VR on psychotherapy could be even higher than the one offered by the new communication technologies (2). In fact, VR is at the same time a technology, a communication interface, and a compelling experience.

Because VR could be part of the future of clinical psychology, it is critical to all psychotherapists that it should be defined broadly. To ensure appropriate development of VR applications, clinicians must have a clear understanding of the opportunities and challenges it will provide to professional practice.

These pages try to outline the current state of clinical research that is relevant to the development of virtual environments for psychotherapy use. In particular, we focus ouranalysis on both actual
applications of VR in clinical psychology and how different clinical perspectives can use this approach to improve the process of therapeutic change.