Virtual reality cut paranoid thinking by 81% for people with psychosis in Manchester

Thinking through a crowded street is, for someone living with psychosis, a daily test. In Manchester, 36 adults with psychosis and agoraphobic avoidance — fear that keeps people from everyday places — have been practising those streets inside virtual reality, in a therapy called Thinking Fast and Slow, also known as gameChange 2. The results, published in The Lancet Psychiatry on October 27 and delivered with Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, were striking: 98% of participants completed the treatment, paranoid thinking fell by 81%, problems with avoiding everyday situations improved by 71%, and anxiety and depression eased too. The therapy, created by Oxford researchers with the Royal College of Art and people with lived experience of psychosis, costs around £900 (about $1,200) per patient — and because it is automated, it can reach people whom overstretched services struggle to see.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: tech innovation