Now he's working on a similar study using a larger group of patients.

Another psychologist, Brenda K. Wiederhold, Ph.D., M.B.A, B.C.I.A.-C., reports a 90 percent success rate using virtual reality therapy to treat phobias over the past three years. She is the director of the Center for Advanced Multimedia Psychotherapy at the California School of Professional Psychology Research and Service Foundation in San Diego.

"It kind of depends on a person's hypnotizability," she says. Though virtual reality is not hypnosis, the reactions it triggers seem similar. "We think that the brain is doing something similar to what happens in hypnosis," she explains.

Accessing the fear structure where fears are stored in the brain requires giving a person "disconfirming information." In virtual reality, that information takes the form of audio and visual stimulation. Then therapists work to replace the fearful reactions with positive information—the fact that the plane doesn't crash, or the fact that the person doesn't fall out of a tall window.

"We thought it wouldn't have as much success with people who are not highly hypnotizable, but it is working once they kind of suspend disbelief," Wiederhold says.

Some people are finished with treatment after eight to twelve sessions. Others may take longer. And, Wiederhold says, those who are under treatment for panic disorders with agoraphobia may take several more sessions.

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