Have you ever wondered how Virtual Reality can improve mental wellness? This interactive session displays the integration of pedagogy and VR into Child and Adolescent, Counseling Skills, and Diagnosis classrooms to promote the benefits and to understand the challenges of incorporating this technology into counseling and other health professions' curriculum.
Many in the mental health community have been slower to adjust to the incorporation of technology into the practice of mental health and marriage and family counseling. As educators of tomorrow's mental health professionals, we recognize that embracing technology and its innovations with an openness is one way to promote wellness and destigmatize negative connotations with treatment for a number of mental health issues. This requires the use of innovative teaching practices that are sensitive both to pedagogy, evidence based practice, and openness to new ways of thinking about technology and its impact. These types of innovative teaching practices have the power to shape the development of the counseling field and its larger impact on wellbeing and mental health in today’s society. Using new technology in the classroom requires understanding, integration, flexibility, training, and research as best practices are developed and translated into clinical practice. In order to expose counseling students to cutting edge, evidence based technology, we integrated VR equipment and a VR platform (amelia) with virtual experiences designed to assist clinicians in the treatment of anxiety disorders, specific phobias, post traumatic stress disorders, eating disorders, bullying, etc. into counseling curriculum, including Counseling Skills, Child and Adolescent, and Diagnosis classes. This session invites participants into our counseling classroom to experience Virtual Reality in relation to mental wellness, using technology for potential interventions, and how to teach and train students to incorporate these alternate experiences into their knowledge base and intervention "tool kit". Applications for other professions and programs will be discussed.
Level of Participation:
We will open with a 15 minute demonstration of the integration of VR technology and pedagogical techniques we utilized in the online and in person counseling classrooms.
We will review and discuss VR and its history and research in relation to Mental Health Counseling and Wellbeing- 5 mins
We will give an overview of the curriculum development, implementation, and classroom experience- 10 min
We will discuss feedback and student perceptions of the curriculum design- 5 mins
We will close with questions and discussion from the session participants- 10 mins
Session Goals:
Participants will identify the strengths and challenges of incorporating VR into the counseling classroom (as well as other potential settings)
Participants will experience the incorporation of Virtual Reality environments in relation to mental health and counseling pedagogy
Participants will gain an understanding of how VR was implemented into counseling curriculum for counselors-in-training at a CACREP accredited program
Participants will explore and understand the history of VR and research supporting the utilization of VR in mental health settings