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Virtual Reality Assisted Schema Therapy

NCT07171736 · Status: RECRUITING · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 30

Last updated 2026-05-15

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Schema therapy helps people understand which emotional needs were not met during childhood, and how they can take care of those needs now. One important part of the therapy is the chairwork exercise, where people imagine talking to different parts of themselves (like the strict parent or the hurt child) using empty chairs. These exercises can be very helpful, but they can also be difficult for people who find it hard to imagine things in their mind.

Virtual Reality (VR) can make these exercises easier and more powerful. VR creates a 3D world that feels real, using special equipment like a headset. In this world, people can see and interact with virtual characters that represent different parts of themselves. This can make the therapy more concrete and easier to understand, especially for people who struggle with imagination.

In this study, the investigators want to compare the regular imagination-based exercise with the chairwork exercise done in Virtual Reality. Everyone who joins the study will do both versions of the exercise-one with imagination and one with VR. The order will be random. Before and after each exercise, a short assessment will be conducted to see how people feel. At the end, there will also be a short interview about their experience. The whole session will take about 1.5 to 2 hours.

The investigators want to know if people experience the VR exercise differently than the regular imagination exercise. The investigators also want to know if these differences depend on how well someone can imagine things in their mind.

Conditions

  • Healthy Participants

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Virtual Reality chairwork exercise

A chairwork exercise from schema therapy, executed in Virtual Reality

BEHAVIORAL

Imagination exercise

A regular schema therapy imagination exercise

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • University of Groningen

    collaborator OTHER

  • University Medical Center Groningen

    lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Model
CROSSOVER

Eligibility

Min Age
16 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2026-01-29
Primary Completion
2026-06-01
Completion
2026-10-01

Countries

  • Netherlands

Study Locations

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Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT07171736 on ClinicalTrials.gov