Our VR EMDR paper is published in Virtual Reality

Our paper on automating EMDR therapy in virtual reality is published today in Virtual Reality. It is open access, so anyone can read the whole thing.

EMDR is an established psychotherapy for trauma. The difficulty is access, not evidence. There are too few trained therapists and the waiting lists are long. The paper describes the VR application we built to deliver the therapy without a therapist in the room, and the pilot study we ran to see whether that holds up in practice.

How the system works

The design came out of working with therapists. The application follows the EMDR protocol, with bilateral stimulation delivered by an interactive metronome and each phase of treatment set in a naturalistic environment chosen to feel calm rather than clinical. Interaction is free-hand, using mechanics borrowed from games to keep people engaged. A cloud-based data system lets a therapist follow a session remotely and step in when they are needed.

What the pilot showed

We ran a five-day study with five participants being treated for specific phobia, looking at feasibility and usability.

Four of the five reached subclinical levels on the IAPT Phobia Scale. In their feedback, participants described the system as accessible and calming, and said it gave them more confidence about managing the phobia.

Five participants is a small number, and this was a feasibility and usability study rather than a controlled trial. What it tells us is that automated delivery is workable and that people are willing to use it. That is the question you have to answer before attempting anything larger.

The paper

Mu, M., Chan, O., Debus, A., Dohan, M., Nicholls, D., Wallang, P. and Breen, K., “Automating EMDR-based mental health treatment in virtual reality”, Virtual Reality, 2026. doi.org/10.1007/s10055-026-01405-3

There is more about this line of work on the EMDR VR page.