A Review of Virtual Therapists in Anxiety and Phobias Alleviating Applications

As more and more people suffer from anxiety disorders, new means of clinical and therapeutical interventions are required. For instance, virtual agents or embodied conversational agents, enriched with human-like appearance and verbal and non-verbal behavior have emerged in recent years. They simulate the real-world therapist, communicate with the patient and convey motivating messages. This paper presents an overview of virtual therapists that have been applied for relieving anxiety and phobias symptoms. It discusses aspects such as: whether the agents have been used for home-based or clinical-based therapy, their physical appearance, verbal and non-verbal behavior, attitude towards the patient, efficacy and results obtained in clinical trials. The field is characterized by a large complexity of models, ideas and study designs. The virtual agents, although many of them are in pilot phase, have been appreciated by the patients as a new and modern approach to traditional therapy, fact that is highly promising in the context of developing new and attractive modalities for relieving emotional distress.