Confronting Your Fears in Virtual Reality Therapy

The “Together with You” center employs psychologists to provide mental health care to civilians in need, including children. Similar centers have also emerged in the area to address rising mental health concerns, like Kimnara Pidtrymky (Support Room) to provide free psychological services to children, both in person and online. These centers — and others like them — often collaborate all in an effort to reduce mental health stigma in the country.

As the number of students seeking mental health support increased, the University of Arizona’s Counseling and Psych Services increased the number of students it’s able to see — up to about 1,500 students a month — as well as the number of staff — from about 40 people in 2019 to 70. This staffing increase makes it easier for more students to access care. The center also provides options for students who struggle with the cost of mental health services.

Sonar Mental Health, the developer of the AI-powered “wellbeing companion” named Sonny, is offering its services to schools that struggle to meet students’ demand for mental health services. Sonny’s algorithm also has trained humans working behind the scenes to ensure students receive proper care. The hybrid bot is available in more than 4,500 public middle and high schools across the country, many of which are in rural and low-income areas.

In rural parts of Wyoming, many people have trouble accessing mental health care resources, but telemedicine is changing that. Employing graduate students as counselors, people can access a telehealth clinic in order to obtain support in the form of specialized trauma care.

Wisconsin confronts a lack of psychiatrists, in particular those who specialize in working with children. The state has begun a telepsychiatry program that enables a psychiatrist to counsel children in remote rural areas. By using webcams, the program has succeeded at eliminating travel time for psychiatrists and appropriating resources to directly and quickly serve those who need them.

Fifty-one counties in the state of Wisconsin do not have child psychiatrists to provide counseling because most of them live in widely populated urban areas. Wisconsin psychiatrists now are offering telepsychiatry, which enables young people to do video conferencing and live chatting with a psychiatrist even if they are in rural areas. The program has shown that it is just as effective as in-person treatment; however, Wisconsin does not allow private insurers to pay for telemedicine services so the reimbursement for telepsychiatrists is still problematic.

Street medicine teams across California are bringing therapy directly to unhoused people to address the widespread but overlooked mental health crisis among people experiencing homelessness. These teams conduct flexible, location-based therapy sessions using coping strategies adapted for life on the street, such as journaling and coloring. Multiple patients credit street therapy with helping them stabilize enough to navigate the complex housing application process and maintain housing once obtained.

In the early 2000s, Minnesota implemented a systematic approach to address inadequate mental health access for students by contracting with outside agencies to place licensed mental health providers directly in public schools. The state expanded funding from $4.7 million in 2008 to over $20 million today, growing from therapists in just five schools to now serving 82% of the state's public school districts.

As many struggle to access mental health care, AI-powered chatbots, called “psychobots,” are emerging as a response to limited access to traditional psychotherapy. While they may not be a replacement for human connection, these chatbots offer affordable, convenient and anonymous psychological support, using techniques such as cognitive-behavioral therapy and advanced conversational AI algorithms to communicate.

A partnership between Hazel Health and the local school district is bridging the gap between students and mental and physical healthcare by providing therapy and telehealth resources before, during and after the school day. Care is provided without any necessary out-of-pocket costs and from November 2023 to June 2024, Hazel Health provided 630 therapy sessions to students across 25 schools.