Education and demonstration – Psychology
Reexamination Certificate
1997-12-12
2002-07-30
Rovnak, John Edmund (Department: 3713)
Education and demonstration
Psychology
Reexamination Certificate
active
06425764
ABSTRACT:
FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH
None
SEQUENCE LISTING OR PROGRAM
None
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to mental therapy, particularly to such a therapy using a virtual reality environment. The invention will be used in medical, psychiatry, psychotherapy, education, selfhelp, home, and entertainment environments and produced with computer hardware and computer software.
2. Prior Art—Psychotherapy-Psychiatry-Mental Health
Originally prescriptions for mental health came from philosophers. Socrates recommended “know thyself” and this advice formed the core of psychoanalysis and psycho-dynamic treatment approaches. Though these methods permitted patients to know and understand themselves better, they failed to change thinking and behavior in a way that would cure emotional distress and impairment. Aristotle (384-323 BC) was the first person to write a systematic psychological treatise which emphasized that knowledge is gained by experience. Behavioral approaches to psychotherapy attempt to influence patient activities, but fail to explain why knowledge from that experience is not enough to correct it. Cognitive or thinking approaches to psychotherapy propose altering distortions in thinking because these lead to emotional distress. Attempts to influence conscious processes have achieved some degree of success, but patients often resist therapeutic interventions which suggest they should change their ways of thinking. Even when people are able to do so, relapses to painful thoughts and emotional distress are common.
Medical efforts to influence human behavior, mental process, and emotional distress have also relied upon invasive procedures. Trephining was a crude surgical practice of the Stone Age whereby a hole was chipped in the skull of a person who was behaving peculiarly. The procedure presumably was conducted to allow the escape of evil spirits. In the Middle Ages, bloodletting was performed for many physical and mental conditions.
Frenkel, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,327,712 (1982) describes an apparatus used to facilitate viewing of one's facial image under controlled illumination patterns for purpose of either psychotherapy or merchandise selection. Simply allowing patients to view themselves without successfully interacting with the environment does not achieve or provide optimized corrective experience.
ECT or electroconvulsive therapy, as shown by Hyman, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,709,700 (1985), is a procedure that continues in psychiatric practice to produce an electric current through the brain to alleviate profound depression. The procedure is typically unpleasant and occasionally dangerous. Patients treated with ECT complain of memory impairment and disorientation in familiar environments.
The use of psycho-pharmacological medications dominate psychiatric practice today. Pharmacological interventions provide symptom management. Patients report some relief from emotional distress, but also complain about day-to-day life restricting side-effects of the medications. For example, psychiatric medications frequently leave patients with dry mouth, constipation, reduced or suppressed sexual interest, weight gain, bloating, sedation, benzodiazepine dependence and withdrawal, frustration with treatment failure, and dependence on the psychiatrist. Raw data from a survey of psychiatrists reveals the overall success rate with medications in the treatment of generalized anxiety disorder is less than 50%.
Woods, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,762,494 (1988) proposes using a doll-like figure on which tears can be applied or removed to reflect current or past mental states. Similar dolls are readily available in department and toy stores. Given the widespread availability of dolls with varying attributes, the possibility for a child-doll dialogue seems obvious.
An apparatus and method for treating undesirable emotional arousal of a patient is shown by Weathers in U.S. Pat. No. 5,219,322 (1993). This uses visual and auditory stimuli as a crude process for eliciting mental imagery of a negative experience. The apparatus does not correspond to natural human experience where people interact with the environment and with others. The primary goal of psychotherapy is to provide corrective experiences that can be effectively used by patients. The more closely the corrective experience simulates reality, the more effective the treatment. Weathers does not use any fully interactive visual and auditory stimulations that are under the control of the patient. He does not accurately simulate reality or permits the user to influence the environment as well as be influenced by it. His method does not closely correspond to events that occur in reality and thus, cannot be effective corrective learning contexts for patients. His method does not empower users because they are not in control of exposure to every aspect of the environmental experience.
Rodgers, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,403,263 (1995), describes a method for reducing anxiety and recovery time of a patient during preoperative, intra-operative, and postoperative phases of surgery. Unlike virtual therapy interactivity, this procedure is limited by its passive introduction of sound and voice to the patient. He does not provide much opportunity to reduce emotional distress by distraction to pleasant scenes accompanied by an auditory input. Also he does not provide opportunities for patients to recovery faster by viewing successes of others and by rehearsal of activities while immersed in a virtual environment known to facilitate recovery.
Brill, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,435,324 (1995), shows a method and apparatus for measuring psychotherapy progress. The procedure requires administration of questionnaires to patients and may be considered an assessment of the patient's emotional state. However assessment during treatment is difficult to accomplish and requires cumbersome administration, collection, and analysis of paper and pencil tests. There is no verbal feedback during assessment and treatment, nor any description of successes and difficulties during environment encounters.
Rosenfeld, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,450,855 (1995), purports to treat alcohol and drug addiction and in U.S. Pat. No. 5,280,793 (1994) purports to treat depression by brainwave training for the purpose of achieving biofeedback. The patient is rewarded for changing asymmetry. This method of treatment shows little, if any, correspondence to known treatment practices of substance-related disorders and depression. Getting a patient to focus on brain waves de-emphasizes or eliminates the crucial variables known to cause the greatest problems for chemically dependent and depressed people. Those variables include distorted thinking, mood swings, depression, anxiety, cravings, denial, anger and rage reactions, isolation, interpersonal difficulties, family dysfunction, and need for medical detoxification, to identify but a few. He does not offers chemically dependent and depressed individuals any opportunity to achieve mastery experiences. Exposure and interactions are not under the patient's control, any successes cannot be attributed directly to them. A lack of success does not build confidence. A lack of mental shifts from depressive thinking to optimism will not create hope or any motivation for additional successful experience.
Putnam, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,619,291 (1997), discloses an eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing treatment, but this is an awkward way to engage a patient and does not correspond to natural everyday experience. Visual displays elicit negative emotional responses. They are not interactive. There are no corrective visual sensory inputs for patient to use and experiment to achieve positive mastery experience.
3. Prior Art—Education and Self-Help
Dill, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,273,540 (1981), describes a training device for evaluating disorders of brain damaged patients and of patients who have suffered trauma to or disease of the central nervous system. The training attempts to help patients obtain confidence but is limited by the method. This dev
Pressman David
Rovnak John Edmund
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