Avatar therapy is a digital treatment for people who experience schizophrenia or other conditions involving psychosis (a disconnect from reality) and who experience auditory hallucinations or hearing voices. Researchers in the United Kingdom have been testing avatar therapy for these individuals.
People affected work with their therapist to design an avatar, a computerized representation of the character that they hear in their head. Then, acting as themself and the avatar, the therapist guides the patient in a three-way conversation to confront and deflect the avatar and its criticisms.
Deeper Dive
The work on this largely has been done in the United Kingdom over the past decade or so, although as of 2024, Canadian investigators were looking into similar research. The phase 2/3 AVATAR2 trial — one of the largest studies to date, of 345 participants — was published in late October in Nature Medicine.
It tested two versions of avatar therapy: a brief version in which participants confronted their avatars over six sessions, and an extended version more tailored to each person’s life history that lasted 12 sessions. After 16 weeks, participants in both groups experienced improvements in voice-related distress, mood and well-being among other measures compared to counterparts who received usual psychotherapy without the addition of avatars.
The UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends avatar therapy as one of three digital health technologies that can be used in National Health Service settings to help manage symptoms of psychosis.