Everyday client stressors are often challenging to replicate in clinical and research environments, which hinders the ability to reliably reproduce clinical outcomes. To overcome this obstacle, tools that can bridge the inherent disconnect between these settings and the real-world experiences of clients are urgently needed. Virtual reality (VR) promises to provide immersive experiences within controlled laboratory or clinical settings. While the potential opportunities and challenges of VR applications have been scientifically reviewed, clinical adoptions into psychology are hampered by a paucity of practical and methodological publications. This paper intends to address that gap, by providing a four-step process for decision-making considerations, including practical recommendations and an applied case study of developing an exposure-based system for obsessive–compulsive disorder. We provide a framework to make VR accessible for clinician-researchers to create similar systems that realise the promise while encouraging ongoing scientific rigour.

日常客户压力源通常难以在临床和研究环境中复制，这阻碍了可靠地再现临床结果的能力。为了克服这一障碍，迫切需要能够弥合这些设置与客户实际体验之间内在脱节的工具。虚拟现实 (VR) 承诺在受控实验室或临床环境中提供身临其境的体验。尽管已经对 VR 应用的潜在机遇和挑战进行了科学审查，但临床应用心理学却因缺乏实用和方法论的出版物而受到阻碍。本文旨在通过为决策考虑提供一个四步流程来解决这一差距，包括实用建议和开发基于暴露的强迫症系统的应用案例研究。我们提供了一个框架，让临床医生研究人员可以访问 VR，以创建类似的系统，在实现承诺的同时鼓励持续的科学严谨性。