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Dr Stéphane Bouchard
Dr Stéphane Bouchard is a Director of Psychology at Quebec University – Laboratoire de cyberpsychologie de l’Université du Québec en Outaouais.
He is also a world leader in Virtual Reality (VR) therapies, based in Canada.
Read his research in ORCiD
Find out more about the Quebec University CyberPsychology Lab, the team, their research and work.
In Virtuo
Find out more about In Virtuo and get in touch with Dr Stéphane Bouchard to find out more about their VR offerings.
In this episode, we talk about the benefits of Virtual Reality as a therapeutic tool and focus on:
* How he originally got into using Virtual Reality (VR) as a therapeutic tool.
* The difference between video-based or tele-psychotherapy and VR therapy, because there is a big difference between them.
* The main areas of research that the lab covers at the University of Quebec – including managing anxiety through exposure therapy using VR.
* The concept of ‘Presence’, why it is important in VR-based therapy, how it helps with overcoming anxiety and phobias and why Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) as a term is a misnomer.
* How VR can be used as a medical treatment in managing acute pain (which is different from chronic pain) – especially when it comes to reducing the focus on the pain.
* The advantages of VR as a therapy tool versus tools such as telepsychotherapy.- from a video conferencing perspective.
* How effective VR is in helping change behaviour in those who struggle with specific disorders such as obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), pathological gambling or sexual offences.
* The benefits that those with neurocognitive issues or dementia patients can get from VR, including neurocognitive assessments and cognitive rehab.
* The explanation of why some feel ‘unwanted negative symptoms induced by immersion in VR’ induced by the ‘decoupling of the sensors’ and some practice guidelines on how to mitigate the symptoms.
* The differences in the response to VR therapeutic interventions by age.
* The In Virtuo (https://invirtuo.wixsite.com/site/home) company developed to sell therapy tools to help fund the research lab work, and how to get in touch to find out more.
* His books on virtual reality therapy.
* How to get involved in the Quebec University CyberPsychology lab.
If you are interested in understanding a little more about VR as a form of therapeutic intervention, you will probably find this episode interesting.
Dr Stéphane Bouchard 's Research and Publications
Books
Research
All Stéphanes’ research is available on his ORCiD profile – click here to access the page.
Some research and book chapters that is relevant to this podcast is listed below.
- Presence: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4899-8023-6_2
- Pain management during bone marrow biopsy: https://www.jmir.org/2023/1/e38619
- Managing paediatric headaches using biofeedback: https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fcpp0000521
- PTSD: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4899-8023-6_10
- Intense phobias: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4899-8023-6_13
- Pathological gambling: https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/47666
- Sexual offences: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4939-9482-3_9
- Obsessive-compulsive disorders https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4939-9482-3_5
- Dementia: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/dementia/articles/10.3389/frdem.2023.1237127/full
- Neurocognitive issues: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4939-9482-3; https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4939-9482-3_1.
