WEBVTT
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Hey, you are my transformers out there. What if I
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told you the same technology you use to beat your
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nephew in Fortnite could also save lives. Yep, we're talking
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virtual reality, but not just for gaming. Today, we're diving
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into how VR is revolutionizing mental health care for veterans.
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And tell me, well, first, let me tell you it's
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not your grandma's therapy session unless she's into virtual combat scenarios.
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Stick around, because my guest today is a pioneer and
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he's crushing it in the VR therapy world. And what's
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he sharing will blow your mind. Forget everything you think
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about when it comes to therapy. This is new, next
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level stuff and it will be right back.
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Come with me, let's rap take a trip back.
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It will be right back.
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It will be I stand for what you stand for.
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I get on the mic. Can I transform? Follow me
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on this world tour that asky that you can follow me?
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Follow me?
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Okay, Welcome back to the Transform, your live show, the
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podcast that's all about empowerment, transformation and sometimes asking why
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the therapist is wearing goggles. I'm your host, Marcus Art,
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and today we have an absolute legend in the world
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of mental health innovation. Joining us today is doctor Skip Rizzo,
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a clinical psychologist, director of Medical Virtual Reality at USC's
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Institution Institute for Creative Technologies, and someone who's spent the
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last thirty years proving that VR is more than just
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a fancy way to play golf indoors. We're talking PTSD
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trauma resilience and how veterans can find healing in ways
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that will make you say, wait what, doctor rizl. Welcome
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to the show, and man, your resume is so impeccable
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that I get tongue twisted trying to get it all out.
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Well, thank you so much for that kind of introduction.
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Yeah, all right, Skip, So let's dive in. You know,
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how did you go from being a clinical psychologist to
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the guy saying let's stick people in virtual war zone
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and call it therapy. Walcus, How you do that in
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your work of virtual reality and how it has involved
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over the years and specifically what it's for you to
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focus on veterans.
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Well, you know, there's an old saying that goes, if
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you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans.
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And this was something that I hadn't really planned. It
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just happened, and it happened organically from my work at
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the time in the early nineties and brain injury rehab,
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where I was working with people who had traumatic brain
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injury or stroke and trying to help them recover their function,
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and it was just frustrated with the limitations of the
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tools at the time. And one day one of my
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clients comes in, twenty two year old male frontal lobe
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injury and he goes, skip, I got to show you something.
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I go, what is it? And he goes, it's a
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game boy, And It's like, what ed?
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He pulls this thing out and he starts playing techs
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and I'm watching him glued to this thing for like
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fifteen to twenty minutes. There's a guy I couldn't. I
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couldn't help him maintain his focus for more than five
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minutes on any kind of traditional rehab task. You know,
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half of that stuff is really boring and repetitive and frustrating,
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and all, you know, helping people recover their attention skills
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or memory. Anyway, he was glued to it, and he
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was he was becoming a Tetris warlord on top of it.
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He was really good at it. And that was the
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first light bulb that went off. It was like, all right,
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you know, if we can gamify this kind of you know,
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difficult rehabilitation activity, you know, we might we might be
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able to get people to do more of it and
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to recover their function. And then a little bit later
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I actually saw the movie lawnmower Man. I don't know
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if you were around back then, but it was.
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I heard of it. I heard of it well, you know.
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It was one of the first VR movies, you know,
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riffing off of a Stephen King novel, and it was
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directed by Brett Leonard, who actually I have the great
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luck to be working with now, but he produced this
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movie and it really showed what virtual reality was about,
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except it was a little bit far visiony in the future.
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And so once I saw that, I said, if we
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put VR together, if we build these simulations that you
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can put people in to help them practice their memory skills,
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practice their attention or executive function, all that we're going
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to be onto something. So I started to look into
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it and learn more about it, and finally in nineteen
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ninety five I ended up going to USC with the
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prime reason to build a lab that would focus on
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developing and stuff, because the technology back then was very
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primitive very you know, it was complicated. Computing wasn't where
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its today, and so you had to be at a
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university to be able to develop this stuff. So I
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got in luckily, and I met some computer scientists that
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bought into the idea. And then it was off to
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the races and we started developing these skill building VR
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activities for mental rotation, visual spatial abilities, all these kind
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of cognitive functions that we could test pretty well and
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you know, learn about it. And then I got my
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first head mounted display and built out a virtual classroom
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for children that we could put them in kids with ADHD,
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and developed ways to better assess their functioning and a
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realistic environment, immersive environment. And then you know, I mean
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I was struggling to keep the lab afloat. You know,
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any university you have to bring in grants and then,
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you know, so we started doing a lot of different things.
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But then the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan started to
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really heat up, and oh, that PTSD was going to
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be a real problem. And I had worked with Vietnam
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era veterans in my clinical training, and I said, you know,
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let's use VR as a tool to deliver this evidence
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based approach of exposure therapy, and I was able to
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get the funding back in two thousand and four, two
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thousand and five that period to be able to build
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it out, and that was that was when things really
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started to take off. Even though VR was still relatively primitive.
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You know, you had these limited you know, forty degree
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field of view headsets and eight hundred by the six
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hundred resolution, you know, but it was enough to activate
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people's emotions in a therapeutic context, and so we started,
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you know, we started using it. We started running clinical
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trials and we documented the value of applying VR in
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this particular area. So that I mean that was that
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was the first half of the career getting started. Since
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that time, you know, done a lot of work with
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artificial intelligence, with virtual humans, developing virtual patients for clinicians
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to practice clinical skills novice clinicians, developed applications for people
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on the autism spectrum to help them develop social skills.
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We developed a number of physical therapy game based applications
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like the Tetris thing. But you know, we're tracking motor
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movement and being able to put people in a gamified
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environment to practice their physical therapy. You know, that stuff
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gets it's boring, it's repetitive, it's frustrating because you know,
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you're you know, you're missing some of your skills due
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to the stroke or the injury or whatever. And that's
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part of the work I'm doing now with Brett Leonard,
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developing applications around physical therapy, developing some stuff for autism,
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for cognitive assessment, and so the work has gone full
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circle from what I was doing my clinical practice work
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into now developing these applications that can now that VR
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has arrived, I mean, look at you know, the two
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things you can say about VR is the technology is
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caught up with the vision. The vision we had in
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the nineties. Now we can do that stuff. And the
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second thing is we've got a giant scientific literature that
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documents where this stuff really adds value in the medical field.
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And it does, you know, I mean.
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We've still got a lot of science still to do,
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and we've got to continue. I mean, science ever sleeps
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a got to keep evolving. But we know we're onto
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something here and scientifically we can back it up.
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Man.
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You know, that's truly amazing, man, And it's a breakthrough
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like for where it came from the mid nineties to
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now VR with from like almost like these blocky graphics
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like minecrafts and emotion sickness to like helping someone like
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me who wants to confront those deepest spirits or don't
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know how you know, Honestly, the only virtual reality I
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had in the nineties was pretending to understand algebra, which
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I still don't get. You know, but I really want
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you to break this down for our listeners who might
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not be as familiar with VR therapy, Like, what are
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some specific ways VR is being used to address PTST.
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You mentioned there's work out there and I got a
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chance to peak at it, you know, but you know,
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this stuff is really incredible for trauma and other mental
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health challenges veterans face and feel free to spring away
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in some stories that like make our jaws like totally
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hit the floor if you want to.
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Well, you know, when you think about the process, I mean,
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we're not like inventing like some new process. We're inventing
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a better tool to deliver what we already know the
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science supports as a clinical process. So, you know, with
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trauma and with anxiety disorders generally, exposure therapy is one
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of the one of the evidence based approaches where you
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help a patient to confront and reprocess difficult emotional memories
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but in a safe place. But the traditional method is
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close your eyes and imagine, you know, you're in that
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war zone or you're on that tall building looking over
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the edge, you know, and you know that's a tall
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order for some people. You know, you're trying to ask
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people that have been spending months, years, decades avoiding thinking
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about the thing that hurt them really badly and asking
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them to do it in their imagination. And you never
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know what's going on in hidden world imagination. So we
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build out these virtual worlds that mimic the trauma, but
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at a pace the patient can handle. And so they
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go in and they're in an environment where it's not
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that provocative, but get them a little anxious a little bit,
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but they can process it, they can deal with it.
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And then you gradually ramp it up and to the
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point where you know they're confronting this stuff. They're talking
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about stuff they've never talked to anybody about because it's
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an emotionally evocative technology. And so you know, we've seen
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many veterans and now we're working with people in Ukraine,
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you know, and also sexual trauma survivors now using the
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same approach. And it's when we start off by saying
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it's hard medicine for a hard problem, because it's not
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easy therapy to experience. But once you see somebody kind
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of get over that hop then you see them all
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of a sudden feel some mastery over something that has
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you know, tamed them for all this time. Now they
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are in charge, they're starting to feel empowered. They can
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talk about things. We're not making the memories go a
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you know, they'll always have these difficult memories, but we're
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making it so it's easier for them to cope with
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those memories, to think about them in a way that
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is more you know, I don't want to say productive,
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but they're more capable of dealing with And so that's
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one of the ways that one of the big areas
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in VR in mental health is employed. You know, it's
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helping people to confront things that they typically avoid at
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a pace they can handle. And you know, we've got
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an emotionally evocative technology. Let's face it, psychologists, that's what
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we're in the business. We're in the business of activating
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emotions and helping people process those emotions.
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And just to invite the listeners and viewers in more closely,
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Like we're talking about combat scenarios, mindfulness programs, and even
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virtual humans helping with social skills. And some people they
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wouldn't even imagine that VR is out here doing more
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than for a lot of them and most of their
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exes ever did for them. But uh, seriously though, man,
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that's that's groundbreaking. And you know, before we get getting
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into the other side of this conversation, which is you know,
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I'm very pulled in and I know the listeners are
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it are two. We're gonna take a quick mid break
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row for some some sponsors type stuff, and we'll be
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right right back.
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Ready, m.
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All right, before we dive deeper, let's talk about earning
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you one thing, it is totally real. I'm crushing it
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and people that I put on questioning and you can
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by clicking the link in the description. Now back to
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the show. So we're back everyone. You know, I have
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my coffee break and I got a chance to check
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in with Skiff and he's doing okay. Skip. One thing
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I really appreciate about your work is how it addresses accessibility.
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You know, let's talk about the barriers veterans facing assessing
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mental health care, especially be our based therapy. You know,
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how does technology like yours, the the markless marker list,
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motion capture help eliminate some of those challenges.
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Well, this is like the innovation that we're working on
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at ubiquity VX with Brett Leonard and the whole crew
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of people that are really talented, and what we're trying
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to do is to employ like a browser based approach
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to be able to make the applications more available to people,
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whether it's in their home or in various clinics. And
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a lot of times clinics that don't have a heck
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of a lot of technical expertise. You've got to make
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it easy, you know. Give you a good example here
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the VA, the Veterans Affairs hospitals around the country, they've
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adopted VR significantly. They get that it matters, and veterans
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like it. You know, I think number one, you got
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the science. Number two, you know it works. Veterans like it,
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and you know it makes it. So the VA has
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you know, polished up their image a little bit. They're
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not your dad's VA anymore, you know, They're They're really
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using state of the art technology you to make a difference.
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And so they went into it full bore. But the
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challenges they face it isn't in the science, It isn't
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in the buy in. It's in how do you train
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a population of clinicians and disseminate all this content across
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you know, almost two hundred VA medical centers around the country,
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the largest healthcare network you know, in the world basically.
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And so it's that unsexy pragmatic element that is really
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the bottleneck or the challenge I wouldn't say a bottleneck,
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but is challenging. And this is where ubiquity comes in,
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where by developing this browser based approach with a system
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that can deliver some VR applications on any computer, any
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flat screen monitor. I mean, you're not wearing a VR headset,
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although our software is system and we'll be able to
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deliver things in a VR headset. But you can send
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a link to somebody in their home and click, they're
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on it and they're in a VR world on a
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big smart TV. And the markets motion tracking, which is
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you know, cameras come standard on these systems now, so
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that camera, any regular you know camera, it's on your laptop,
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even on your phone if you wanted to use your phone,
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is able to capture your body movement and engage that
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interaction within the VR environment so that you can start
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to do physical therapy, range of motion reaching interacting with
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content on this big screen in your home or on
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a screen without the headset. Now, I will say that
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our system is being geared towards being able to drive
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a similar easily accessible process a VR headset, because there
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are applications where you have to have that full immersion,
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but there are many applications that have a powerful healthcare
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benefit that can be delivered in this flat screen mode.
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And by having this tracking system that allows you to
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interact with the content, you're really pushing embodiment in a
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VR world by fostering high fidelity activity and engagement and interaction.
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Because you know there's three things in VR three eyes, immersion, interactivity,
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and imagination, and you know you can make up for
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what you might not get with we might not deliver
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in an immersive environment by fostering high fidelity interaction. And
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that's where the markets motion tracking approach really comes in.
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We're trying to democratize the accessibility of these kinds of
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VR applications to get it out the door, get it
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in people's homes, get it in clinics that might not
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have a heck of a lot of technical expertise, would
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be our headsets and so on. Uh. And that's that's
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why I'm excited about this working with ubiquities. You know,
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I've been in the lab for all this time. You know,
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I've been to point my career. I want to I
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want to kick stuff out of the lab. I want
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to get it in people's heads, you know. So that's
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what gets me excited every day.
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And it's rain cleaning is right around the corner, and
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I love that, Like this tech removes so many different
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hurdles with people. And let's be honest, skip man. You know,
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nobody wants to spend in thirty minutes attaching motions, centers,
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sensors before therapy, you know, and we're trying to heal.
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That's how a lot of veterans like myself feel you know,
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let's just get it. Let's get it to the point.
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You know, we don't want to audition for the matrix reloaded.
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So right right right, you got it? You got it. Yeah.
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So so looking at he ask if you know what's
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what's next for VR and mental health? You know, are
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there emergent applications or innovations that have you know, you
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particularly a citing you know, you just mentioned ambiguous, like
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you know, ambiguity, which is great, but especially for like
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foster resilience and recovery and veterans.
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Well, I think we have.
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We have a whole new generation of number one, whole
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new generation of young people that are coming into the
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field that grew up with this technology. And I'm I'm
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I'm often humbled when I start to work more with
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the younger people that you know, they're half my age,
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but they honestly, I think they know twice as much
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as I do. And so we have a generation of
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enthusiastic people that are developing these kinds of applications and
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they've got the tools to do it. They've got AI.
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AI is total game change. I mean you hear that everybody,
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everybody says that you know.
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There's not the novel there of it.
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The last two years, I mean it's transformed productivity and
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content development and so on. I'm working with another company
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that is leveraging AI to actually generate content for people
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that's more customized to their needs. So it still has
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a ways to go to get that high fidelity you know,
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and and motion based three D graphics, but it's that's
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coming down the pipe. So I think we're going to
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see dramatic transformations and particular, you know, as I mentioned
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before with the VA, they are going full bore into this,
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and I mean the technology has actually I always used
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to say it's caught up with the vision. Now it's
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surpassing the vision. There are new things that we can build.
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We can create content, and we can measure the effects
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of that content on people, whether they're wearable device or
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tracking their facial expressions and inferring emotion from how they
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interact in some of some of these applications. There's just
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many ways that you know, it's transformative for healthcare. I mean, no,
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look at I love the game industry. I like playing
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video games myself, and I want that to be successful.
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But the real value is going to be I think
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in medicine and in education. I think education is sort
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of the unsung area where you know, if you tell
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me in ten years that kids are not going to
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be interacting with atoms or solar system processes or anything
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in VR to learn, to be able to visualize, to
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be able to construct things, I say, you're crazy, because
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because it's it's just it's a perfect match for inspiring
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kids to learn things that in the past might have
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been very difficult for them to visualize a lot of
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a lot of good stuff to look forward to.
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It is in man skipt, you know, shout out to
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your published when your name came across, instantly said like, yeah,
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I'm ready to try VR, you know, because like I
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didn't know much about it, but after to day, you know,
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you really gave me a lot of insight into what
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it can do. And who knows, maybe VR will let
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me live out my dreams and being a backout saying
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dancer for But but seriously, though, the work you're doing
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is life changing, and I really appreciate you so much.
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And like the veteran my fellow brothers and sisters and
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arms like they appreciate, appreciate this technology, and once they
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find out, you know, through this podcast about about this,
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they're going to be like being down the doors of
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the VA to say, hey, you know, can we get more?
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It is so, you know, any last any final things
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you want to share before like, I'll let you go.
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Well, you know, let's all work to drag psychology kicking
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and screaming into the twenty first century, you know, And
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I think this technology, being an experiential technology, is well
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poised to help do that and to make a real
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difference for people that deserve our best efforts. And whether
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that's veterans, or whether that's traumatized kids, or whether it's
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people that have suffered significant injuries and are trying to
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recover their function, these are all areas we have sort
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of a moral commitment to do our best buy.
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And so.
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Hopefully I'll be back with you in a year and
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talk about what, you know, what we've done in the
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last year with Ubiquity, because I think there's going to
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be some significant advancements.
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The efforts that they're pursuing as well.
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That's gonna be the game changer right there. So I
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do look forward to a follow up conversation after this one.
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And you know already invited you to do some more
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little side work. Hopefully take pick me up when they
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invite too. So all right, folks, you know that's our
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show for today. You know, Hughes. Thank you to doctor
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Skip Rizzo for sharing his incredible insights and for reminding
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us that technology and do more than tiktoks, It can
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transform lives. Make sure you check out the links in
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the show notes to learn more about Skip's work and
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the innovative tools making a difference in mental health care
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for veterans and beyond. And if today's episode inspire you,
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don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this
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with someone who needs to hear it. Let's keep the
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transforming going and until next time, this is Marcus Hart
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reminding you to stay strong, stay inspired, and staying your journey.
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Many blessings, peace and lots of love.
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I stand for what you stand for. I met your
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door like the land. I can see the future. Yeah,
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I fast forward, I get on the mic and I transform.
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Follow me.
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I'm in rere form.
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Follow me on this world tour. The astronoid that you
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can't avoid small changes
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Hey, you are my transformers out there. What if I
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told you the same technology you use to beat your
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nephew in Fortnite could also save lives. Yep, we're talking
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virtual reality, but not just for gaming. Today, we're diving
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into how VR is revolutionizing mental health care for veterans.
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And tell me, well, first, let me tell you it's
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not your grandma's therapy session unless she's into virtual combat scenarios.
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Stick around, because my guest today is a pioneer and
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he's crushing it in the VR therapy world. And what's
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he sharing will blow your mind. Forget everything you think
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about when it comes to therapy. This is new, next
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level stuff and it will be right back.
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Come with me, let's rap take a trip back.
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It will be right back.
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It will be I stand for what you stand for.
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I get on the mic. Can I transform? Follow me
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00:00:54.799 --> 00:00:59.280
on this world tour that asky that you can follow me?
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Follow me?
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Okay, Welcome back to the Transform, your live show, the
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podcast that's all about empowerment, transformation and sometimes asking why
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the therapist is wearing goggles. I'm your host, Marcus Art,
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and today we have an absolute legend in the world
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of mental health innovation. Joining us today is doctor Skip Rizzo,
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a clinical psychologist, director of Medical Virtual Reality at USC's
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Institution Institute for Creative Technologies, and someone who's spent the
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last thirty years proving that VR is more than just
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a fancy way to play golf indoors. We're talking PTSD
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trauma resilience and how veterans can find healing in ways
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that will make you say, wait what, doctor rizl. Welcome
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to the show, and man, your resume is so impeccable
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that I get tongue twisted trying to get it all out.
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Well, thank you so much for that kind of introduction.
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Yeah, all right, Skip, So let's dive in. You know,
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how did you go from being a clinical psychologist to
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the guy saying let's stick people in virtual war zone
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and call it therapy. Walcus, How you do that in
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your work of virtual reality and how it has involved
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over the years and specifically what it's for you to
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focus on veterans.
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Well, you know, there's an old saying that goes, if
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you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans.
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And this was something that I hadn't really planned. It
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just happened, and it happened organically from my work at
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the time in the early nineties and brain injury rehab,
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where I was working with people who had traumatic brain
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injury or stroke and trying to help them recover their function,
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and it was just frustrated with the limitations of the
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tools at the time. And one day one of my
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clients comes in, twenty two year old male frontal lobe
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injury and he goes, skip, I got to show you something.
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I go, what is it? And he goes, it's a
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game boy, And It's like, what ed?
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He pulls this thing out and he starts playing techs
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and I'm watching him glued to this thing for like
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fifteen to twenty minutes. There's a guy I couldn't. I
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couldn't help him maintain his focus for more than five
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minutes on any kind of traditional rehab task. You know,
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half of that stuff is really boring and repetitive and frustrating,
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and all, you know, helping people recover their attention skills
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or memory. Anyway, he was glued to it, and he
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was he was becoming a Tetris warlord on top of it.
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He was really good at it. And that was the
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first light bulb that went off. It was like, all right,
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you know, if we can gamify this kind of you know,
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difficult rehabilitation activity, you know, we might we might be
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able to get people to do more of it and
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to recover their function. And then a little bit later
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I actually saw the movie lawnmower Man. I don't know
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if you were around back then, but it was.
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I heard of it. I heard of it well, you know.
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It was one of the first VR movies, you know,
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riffing off of a Stephen King novel, and it was
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directed by Brett Leonard, who actually I have the great
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luck to be working with now, but he produced this
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movie and it really showed what virtual reality was about,
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except it was a little bit far visiony in the future.
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And so once I saw that, I said, if we
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put VR together, if we build these simulations that you
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can put people in to help them practice their memory skills,
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practice their attention or executive function, all that we're going
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to be onto something. So I started to look into
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it and learn more about it, and finally in nineteen
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ninety five I ended up going to USC with the
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prime reason to build a lab that would focus on
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developing and stuff, because the technology back then was very
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primitive very you know, it was complicated. Computing wasn't where
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its today, and so you had to be at a
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university to be able to develop this stuff. So I
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got in luckily, and I met some computer scientists that
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bought into the idea. And then it was off to
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the races and we started developing these skill building VR
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activities for mental rotation, visual spatial abilities, all these kind
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of cognitive functions that we could test pretty well and
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you know, learn about it. And then I got my
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first head mounted display and built out a virtual classroom
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for children that we could put them in kids with ADHD,
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and developed ways to better assess their functioning and a
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realistic environment, immersive environment. And then you know, I mean
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I was struggling to keep the lab afloat. You know,
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any university you have to bring in grants and then,
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you know, so we started doing a lot of different things.
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But then the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan started to
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really heat up, and oh, that PTSD was going to
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be a real problem. And I had worked with Vietnam
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era veterans in my clinical training, and I said, you know,
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let's use VR as a tool to deliver this evidence
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based approach of exposure therapy, and I was able to
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get the funding back in two thousand and four, two
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thousand and five that period to be able to build
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it out, and that was that was when things really
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started to take off. Even though VR was still relatively primitive.
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You know, you had these limited you know, forty degree
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field of view headsets and eight hundred by the six
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hundred resolution, you know, but it was enough to activate
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people's emotions in a therapeutic context, and so we started,
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you know, we started using it. We started running clinical
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trials and we documented the value of applying VR in
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this particular area. So that I mean that was that
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was the first half of the career getting started. Since
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that time, you know, done a lot of work with
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artificial intelligence, with virtual humans, developing virtual patients for clinicians
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to practice clinical skills novice clinicians, developed applications for people
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on the autism spectrum to help them develop social skills.
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We developed a number of physical therapy game based applications
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like the Tetris thing. But you know, we're tracking motor
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movement and being able to put people in a gamified
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environment to practice their physical therapy. You know, that stuff
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gets it's boring, it's repetitive, it's frustrating because you know,
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you're you know, you're missing some of your skills due
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to the stroke or the injury or whatever. And that's
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part of the work I'm doing now with Brett Leonard,
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developing applications around physical therapy, developing some stuff for autism,
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for cognitive assessment, and so the work has gone full
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circle from what I was doing my clinical practice work
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into now developing these applications that can now that VR
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has arrived, I mean, look at you know, the two
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things you can say about VR is the technology is
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caught up with the vision. The vision we had in
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the nineties. Now we can do that stuff. And the
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second thing is we've got a giant scientific literature that
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documents where this stuff really adds value in the medical field.
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And it does, you know, I mean.
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We've still got a lot of science still to do,
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and we've got to continue. I mean, science ever sleeps
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a got to keep evolving. But we know we're onto
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something here and scientifically we can back it up.
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Man.
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You know, that's truly amazing, man, And it's a breakthrough
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like for where it came from the mid nineties to
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now VR with from like almost like these blocky graphics
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like minecrafts and emotion sickness to like helping someone like
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me who wants to confront those deepest spirits or don't
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know how you know, Honestly, the only virtual reality I
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had in the nineties was pretending to understand algebra, which
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I still don't get. You know, but I really want
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you to break this down for our listeners who might
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not be as familiar with VR therapy, Like, what are
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some specific ways VR is being used to address PTST.
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You mentioned there's work out there and I got a
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chance to peak at it, you know, but you know,
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this stuff is really incredible for trauma and other mental
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health challenges veterans face and feel free to spring away
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in some stories that like make our jaws like totally
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hit the floor if you want to.
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Well, you know, when you think about the process, I mean,
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we're not like inventing like some new process. We're inventing
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a better tool to deliver what we already know the
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science supports as a clinical process. So, you know, with
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trauma and with anxiety disorders generally, exposure therapy is one
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of the one of the evidence based approaches where you
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help a patient to confront and reprocess difficult emotional memories
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but in a safe place. But the traditional method is
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close your eyes and imagine, you know, you're in that
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war zone or you're on that tall building looking over
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the edge, you know, and you know that's a tall
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order for some people. You know, you're trying to ask
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people that have been spending months, years, decades avoiding thinking
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about the thing that hurt them really badly and asking
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them to do it in their imagination. And you never
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know what's going on in hidden world imagination. So we
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build out these virtual worlds that mimic the trauma, but
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at a pace the patient can handle. And so they
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go in and they're in an environment where it's not
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that provocative, but get them a little anxious a little bit,
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but they can process it, they can deal with it.
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And then you gradually ramp it up and to the
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point where you know they're confronting this stuff. They're talking
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about stuff they've never talked to anybody about because it's
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an emotionally evocative technology. And so you know, we've seen
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many veterans and now we're working with people in Ukraine,
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you know, and also sexual trauma survivors now using the
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same approach. And it's when we start off by saying
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it's hard medicine for a hard problem, because it's not
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easy therapy to experience. But once you see somebody kind
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of get over that hop then you see them all
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of a sudden feel some mastery over something that has
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you know, tamed them for all this time. Now they
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are in charge, they're starting to feel empowered. They can
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talk about things. We're not making the memories go a
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you know, they'll always have these difficult memories, but we're
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making it so it's easier for them to cope with
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those memories, to think about them in a way that
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is more you know, I don't want to say productive,
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but they're more capable of dealing with And so that's
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one of the ways that one of the big areas
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in VR in mental health is employed. You know, it's
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helping people to confront things that they typically avoid at
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a pace they can handle. And you know, we've got
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an emotionally evocative technology. Let's face it, psychologists, that's what
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we're in the business. We're in the business of activating
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emotions and helping people process those emotions.
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And just to invite the listeners and viewers in more closely,
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Like we're talking about combat scenarios, mindfulness programs, and even
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virtual humans helping with social skills. And some people they
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wouldn't even imagine that VR is out here doing more
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than for a lot of them and most of their
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exes ever did for them. But uh, seriously though, man,
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that's that's groundbreaking. And you know, before we get getting
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into the other side of this conversation, which is you know,
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I'm very pulled in and I know the listeners are
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it are two. We're gonna take a quick mid break
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row for some some sponsors type stuff, and we'll be
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right right back.
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Ready, m.
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All right, before we dive deeper, let's talk about earning
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and people that I put on questioning and you can
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by clicking the link in the description. Now back to
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the show. So we're back everyone. You know, I have
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my coffee break and I got a chance to check
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in with Skiff and he's doing okay. Skip. One thing
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I really appreciate about your work is how it addresses accessibility.
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You know, let's talk about the barriers veterans facing assessing
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mental health care, especially be our based therapy. You know,
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how does technology like yours, the the markless marker list,
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motion capture help eliminate some of those challenges.
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Well, this is like the innovation that we're working on
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at ubiquity VX with Brett Leonard and the whole crew
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of people that are really talented, and what we're trying
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to do is to employ like a browser based approach
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to be able to make the applications more available to people,
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whether it's in their home or in various clinics. And
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a lot of times clinics that don't have a heck
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of a lot of technical expertise. You've got to make
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it easy, you know. Give you a good example here
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the VA, the Veterans Affairs hospitals around the country, they've
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adopted VR significantly. They get that it matters, and veterans
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like it. You know, I think number one, you got
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the science. Number two, you know it works. Veterans like it,
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and you know it makes it. So the VA has
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you know, polished up their image a little bit. They're
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not your dad's VA anymore, you know, They're They're really
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using state of the art technology you to make a difference.
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And so they went into it full bore. But the
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challenges they face it isn't in the science, It isn't
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in the buy in. It's in how do you train
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a population of clinicians and disseminate all this content across
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you know, almost two hundred VA medical centers around the country,
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the largest healthcare network you know, in the world basically.
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And so it's that unsexy pragmatic element that is really
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the bottleneck or the challenge I wouldn't say a bottleneck,
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but is challenging. And this is where ubiquity comes in,
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where by developing this browser based approach with a system
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that can deliver some VR applications on any computer, any
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flat screen monitor. I mean, you're not wearing a VR headset,
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although our software is system and we'll be able to
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deliver things in a VR headset. But you can send
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a link to somebody in their home and click, they're
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on it and they're in a VR world on a
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big smart TV. And the markets motion tracking, which is
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you know, cameras come standard on these systems now, so
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that camera, any regular you know camera, it's on your laptop,
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even on your phone if you wanted to use your phone,
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is able to capture your body movement and engage that
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interaction within the VR environment so that you can start
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to do physical therapy, range of motion reaching interacting with
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content on this big screen in your home or on
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a screen without the headset. Now, I will say that
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our system is being geared towards being able to drive
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a similar easily accessible process a VR headset, because there
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are applications where you have to have that full immersion,
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but there are many applications that have a powerful healthcare
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benefit that can be delivered in this flat screen mode.
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And by having this tracking system that allows you to
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interact with the content, you're really pushing embodiment in a
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VR world by fostering high fidelity activity and engagement and interaction.
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Because you know there's three things in VR three eyes, immersion, interactivity,
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and imagination, and you know you can make up for
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what you might not get with we might not deliver
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in an immersive environment by fostering high fidelity interaction. And
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that's where the markets motion tracking approach really comes in.
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We're trying to democratize the accessibility of these kinds of
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VR applications to get it out the door, get it
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in people's homes, get it in clinics that might not
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have a heck of a lot of technical expertise, would
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be our headsets and so on. Uh. And that's that's
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why I'm excited about this working with ubiquities. You know,
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I've been in the lab for all this time. You know,
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I've been to point my career. I want to I
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want to kick stuff out of the lab. I want
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to get it in people's heads, you know. So that's
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what gets me excited every day.
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And it's rain cleaning is right around the corner, and
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I love that, Like this tech removes so many different
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hurdles with people. And let's be honest, skip man. You know,
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nobody wants to spend in thirty minutes attaching motions, centers,
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sensors before therapy, you know, and we're trying to heal.
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That's how a lot of veterans like myself feel you know,
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let's just get it. Let's get it to the point.
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You know, we don't want to audition for the matrix reloaded.
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So right right right, you got it? You got it. Yeah.
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So so looking at he ask if you know what's
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what's next for VR and mental health? You know, are
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there emergent applications or innovations that have you know, you
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particularly a citing you know, you just mentioned ambiguous, like
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you know, ambiguity, which is great, but especially for like
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foster resilience and recovery and veterans.
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Well, I think we have.
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We have a whole new generation of number one, whole
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new generation of young people that are coming into the
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field that grew up with this technology. And I'm I'm
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I'm often humbled when I start to work more with
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the younger people that you know, they're half my age,
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but they honestly, I think they know twice as much
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as I do. And so we have a generation of
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enthusiastic people that are developing these kinds of applications and
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they've got the tools to do it. They've got AI.
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AI is total game change. I mean you hear that everybody,
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everybody says that you know.
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There's not the novel there of it.
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The last two years, I mean it's transformed productivity and
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content development and so on. I'm working with another company
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that is leveraging AI to actually generate content for people
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that's more customized to their needs. So it still has
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a ways to go to get that high fidelity you know,
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and and motion based three D graphics, but it's that's
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coming down the pipe. So I think we're going to
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see dramatic transformations and particular, you know, as I mentioned
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before with the VA, they are going full bore into this,
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and I mean the technology has actually I always used
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to say it's caught up with the vision. Now it's
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surpassing the vision. There are new things that we can build.
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We can create content, and we can measure the effects
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of that content on people, whether they're wearable device or
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tracking their facial expressions and inferring emotion from how they
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interact in some of some of these applications. There's just
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many ways that you know, it's transformative for healthcare. I mean, no,
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look at I love the game industry. I like playing
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video games myself, and I want that to be successful.
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But the real value is going to be I think
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in medicine and in education. I think education is sort
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of the unsung area where you know, if you tell
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me in ten years that kids are not going to
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be interacting with atoms or solar system processes or anything
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in VR to learn, to be able to visualize, to
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be able to construct things, I say, you're crazy, because
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because it's it's just it's a perfect match for inspiring
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kids to learn things that in the past might have
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been very difficult for them to visualize a lot of
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a lot of good stuff to look forward to.
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It is in man skipt, you know, shout out to
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your published when your name came across, instantly said like, yeah,
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I'm ready to try VR, you know, because like I
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didn't know much about it, but after to day, you know,
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you really gave me a lot of insight into what
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it can do. And who knows, maybe VR will let
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me live out my dreams and being a backout saying
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dancer for But but seriously, though, the work you're doing
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is life changing, and I really appreciate you so much.
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And like the veteran my fellow brothers and sisters and
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arms like they appreciate, appreciate this technology, and once they
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find out, you know, through this podcast about about this,
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they're going to be like being down the doors of
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the VA to say, hey, you know, can we get more?
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It is so, you know, any last any final things
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you want to share before like, I'll let you go.
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Well, you know, let's all work to drag psychology kicking
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and screaming into the twenty first century, you know, And
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I think this technology, being an experiential technology, is well
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poised to help do that and to make a real
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difference for people that deserve our best efforts. And whether
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that's veterans, or whether that's traumatized kids, or whether it's
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people that have suffered significant injuries and are trying to
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recover their function, these are all areas we have sort
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of a moral commitment to do our best buy.
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And so.
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Hopefully I'll be back with you in a year and
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talk about what, you know, what we've done in the
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last year with Ubiquity, because I think there's going to
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be some significant advancements.
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The efforts that they're pursuing as well.
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That's gonna be the game changer right there. So I
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do look forward to a follow up conversation after this one.
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And you know already invited you to do some more
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little side work. Hopefully take pick me up when they
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invite too. So all right, folks, you know that's our
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show for today. You know, Hughes. Thank you to doctor
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Skip Rizzo for sharing his incredible insights and for reminding
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us that technology and do more than tiktoks, It can
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transform lives. Make sure you check out the links in
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the show notes to learn more about Skip's work and
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the innovative tools making a difference in mental health care
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for veterans and beyond. And if today's episode inspire you,
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don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this
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00:25:43.480 --> 00:25:45.799
with someone who needs to hear it. Let's keep the
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transforming going and until next time, this is Marcus Hart
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reminding you to stay strong, stay inspired, and staying your journey.
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Many blessings, peace and lots of love.
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I stand for what you stand for. I met your
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door like the land. I can see the future. Yeah,
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I fast forward, I get on the mic and I transform.
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Follow me.
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I'm in rere form.
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Follow me on this world tour. The astronoid that you
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can't avoid small changes
