Silvia Aparecida Fornazari

Facetas da Exposição In Vivo e por Realidade Virtual na Intervenção Psicológica no Medo de Dirigir

Contact with the feared stimuli is part of the most indicated psychological intervention strategies to treat phobia and fear. This paper describes the exposure components in some of the main strategies cited to treat phobias and fear, with emphasis on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET), focusing on the driving phobia. The review data showed that the main types of treatment involve exposure to feared situations/objects, and these can be public and/or private (the experience of feeling and thinking in the ACT) or virtual, as in VRET. It was concluded that intense anxiety responses are extinguished in exposure to public/private stimuli, whether in vivo or by virtual reality, and as fear involves verbal behavior, learning principles are also applied in the extinction of the emotional behavior related to these responses.