IMMERSIVE ROOM THERAPY
The role of interactive ‘virtual’ environments
For the past two years, doctoral researcher, Tor Alexander Bruce, has been developing the foundations of a study linked to prototyping in mental healthcare environments, building collaborations across public and private sectors and in academia. His work was funded in 2019 via a collaborative studentship award between a Southport-based technology company, Immersive Interactive, and Northumbria University. Here he discusses this study – undertaken with expert professorial supervision in the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI), and co-supervision from within the University’s Faculty of Health and Life Sciences.
A mental health ‘timeline’ study which began by exploring 2D ‘post-it note’ technology is evolving thanks to a collaborative partnership formed between Immersive Interactive, a Southport-based technology company that specialises in the installation of immersive rooms, and the University of Northumbria in Newcastle. The study is exploring the role of immersive interactive virtual environments (IIVEs) in the context of mental health therapy interventions in childhood trauma. The study builds on work undertaken by me since September 2017, which has demonstrated the potential benefits of narrative techniques for individuals with traumas that underpin many mental health problems. Immersive technologies are recognised as Virtual Reality (VR) technologies, and are broadly understood across a range of devices, tools, applications, and settings, which in themselves permeate several different industries – including manufacturing, the military, medical equipment, education, architecture, ergonomics, special education, and entertainment.
A ‘third sector’ background I arrived in academia from a third sector background, with a strategic, social, and highly user-led focus. I also trained in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and teaching. My previous CEO role involved the design-transformation of a 10,000 ft2 derelict factory space into a facility where young people could attain personal autonomy via interaction with the processes and systems designed within this space. Many of these young people had highly challenged backgrounds, and my interest in ‘trauma’ stemmed from becoming inspired by their resilience and their brilliance in the ways they interacted with our superb team of arts-based facilitators. The journey into HCI design has been relatively fluid, with a great deal of new reading, design-related practice, and, at this early stage, low-fidelity
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A first stage prototype design using a model participant in a blank-walled room applying Post-It 2D technology. Right: A feasibility trial Post-It example.
prototyping involving the building of miniature models which represent the larger actual immersive interactive environment. My work has retained very much a participatory people focus in terms of co-creating toward resolving challenges, ‘creating products with them, not for them’.
A very early stage prototype I developed a very early stage prototype in a basic rectangular room in a residential setting, planning a therapeutic process out across the walls, and using Post-Its offering those who may have experienced a complex narrative (life story) an opportunity to set their story straight. This was in 2017-18, with the design then transferred to one of Immersive Interactive’s technology installations at the Clinical Skills facility at the University of Northumbria. The space itself was being used largely by the Nursing faculty to simulate true-to-life hospital ward settings. Here we were able to make use of the technology and upload unique content, replicating the original room
with some enhanced, interactive features. This immediately allowed for a haptic (touch-interactive) user response, and a higher level of visual personalisation. It led to an early assumption that the technology had greater potential in terms of allowing participants, or patients, the ability to play a key role in designing their own content.
Feasibility trial
A feasibility trial with 12 participants demonstrated efficacy in 2017-18, and the current doctoral study is now building on this at a more sophisticated level, to rigorously test the safety, effects, and evaluation of, the technology. It is intriguing to consider the various conceptual uses of this type of technology, beginning with Heilig’s ‘Sensorama’ vision in the 1960s, and advancing through and beyond the likes of Kreuger’s ‘Videoplace’ as the first
JULY 2020 | THE NETWORK
©Tor Alexander Bruce, 2020
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