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Virtual Reality for the Treatment of Body Image Disturbances in Eating and Weight Disorders

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Body Image, Eating, and Weight

Abstract

Virtual Reality (VR) is an emerging simulative technology that provides the individual with the feeling of “being inside” a synthetic environment generated by computer graphics. The sense of presence and emotional engagement offered by VR can be a powerful tool for personal change because it provides a high level of personal efficacy and self-reflectiveness. More, VR can be considered an embodied technology for its ability of modifying the experience of the body: using VR, subjects can experience digital bodies as if they were their own body. For these features, several VR applications have been developed to be used in the treatment of body image disturbances, and their effectiveness has been positively tested in case studies, as well as in non-controlled and controlled trials. The rationale behind many of these trials is the hypothesis that individuals with EDs may reflect a deficit in the processing and integration of multisensory bodily representations and signals that alters the way the body is “experienced” and “remembered”. In this view, VR as a synthetic egocentric experience, can be used in a sensory training to unlock the body memory (body image rescripting protocol) by increasing the contribution of new egocentric/internal somatosensory information directly related to the existing allocentric memory. The emerging field of multisensory bodily illusion may further improve the actual protocols.

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Acknowledgments

This chapter was supported by the research project: “Unlocking the memory of the body: Virtual Reality in Anorexia Nervosa” (201597WTTM) by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centro Studi e Ricerche di Psicologia della Comunicazione, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy

    Giuseppe Riva & Silvia Serino

  2. Applied Technology for Neuro-Psychology Lab, Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Milan, Italy

    Giuseppe Riva & Silvia Serino

  3. Department of Neuroscience, Functional Pharmacology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Santino Gaudio

  4. Centre for Integrated Research (CIR), Area of Diagnostic Imaging, Università “Campus Bio-Medico di Roma”, Rome, Italy

    Santino Gaudio

  5. Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Milano Bicocca, Milan, Italy

    Antonios Dakanalis

  6. Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy

    Antonios Dakanalis

  7. Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Antonios Dakanalis, Marta Ferrer-García & José Gutiérrez-Maldonado

  8. Applied Technology for Neuro-Psychology Lab, Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Milan, Italy

    Antonios Dakanalis

Authors
  1. Giuseppe Riva
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  2. Santino Gaudio
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  3. Silvia Serino
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  4. Antonios Dakanalis
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  5. Marta Ferrer-García
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  6. José Gutiérrez-Maldonado
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Giuseppe Riva .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Formerly University Sapienza of Rome, Editor-in-Chief of Eating and Weight Disorders, Campiglia Marittima (LI), Italy

    Massimo Cuzzolaro

  2. Department of Neuroscience, University of Turin, Torino, Italy

    Secondo Fassino

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Riva, G., Gaudio, S., Serino, S., Dakanalis, A., Ferrer-García, M., Gutiérrez-Maldonado, J. (2018). Virtual Reality for the Treatment of Body Image Disturbances in Eating and Weight Disorders. In: Cuzzolaro, M., Fassino, S. (eds) Body Image, Eating, and Weight. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90817-5_25

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