APA CE Course
Cognitive Leap Solutions Inc. is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Cognitive Leap Solutions Inc. maintains responsibility for this program and its content
Technology Meets Mental Health Series - 2
Virtual Reality Goes to War and Beyond:
Advances in the Treatment of PTSD Related to Military Combat and Sexual Trauma
Join internationally recognized VR researcher Dr. Skip Rizzo for a continuing education workshop exploring the evolution of VR-based interventions for PTSD, military combat trauma, sexual trauma, resilience training, and AI-powered mental health care.
Who Should Attend
This course is open to both professionals and non-professionals. Participants may include clinicians, researchers, students, educators, coaches, and parents of neurodivergent children. APA Continuing Education (CE) credit is available only for eligible licensed professionals.
Albert “Skip” Rizzo, PhD
A clinical psychologist and internationally recognized pioneer in medical virtual reality and digital mental health. He is a Research Professor at the University of Southern California (USC) and Director for Medical Virtual Reality at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies. Dr. Rizzo has spent more than two decades developing immersive virtual environments for the assessment and treatment of psychological conditions, including PTSD, anxiety disorders, and cognitive impairments. His work has been supported by agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Defense. Dr. Rizzo has authored over 300 scientific publications and continues to advance the integration of emerging technologies into behavioral health care.
Course Overview
War and interpersonal violence represent some of the most psychologically challenging experiences a human being can endure. The physical, emotional, cognitive, and moral demands of combat and trauma exposure place extraordinary stress on even the most highly trained individuals. Following the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, growing evidence revealed the profound mental health impact of war on Service Members and Veterans, helping catalyze efforts to improve the development and dissemination of evidence-based treatments for PTSD and related conditions.
In response to this need, the USC BRAVEMIND Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) system was developed to support trauma-focused treatment through immersive virtual environments tailored to combat and military experiences. Over the past two decades, BRAVEMIND and related VR interventions have demonstrated promising clinical outcomes across multiple studies involving military personnel, Veterans, and civilians with PTSD. These systems use controlled, clinician-guided exposure to trauma-relevant cues to support emotional processing, extinction learning, and functional recovery.
This APA-accredited continuing education course will review the scientific foundations and clinical evolution of VR-based interventions for PTSD, beginning with early exposure-based applications for the treatment of Anxiety Disorders and Phobias. The presentation will then review the evolution of this approach for the treatment of PTSD due to military combat and sexual trauma (MST), civilian trauma, and war-related psychological injury in current international global conflicts.
The course will provide current details on ongoing international initiatives that provide a broad roadmap for the use of modern digital technologies for trauma treatment. This will include the “Virtual Ukraine” and emerging “Virtual Israel/Gaza” projects, which illustrate a broad spectrum of trauma-focused VR and tech-focused applications designed to address four major clinical goals:
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Trauma-Focused VR Exposure Therapy
Continued Evolution, Adaptation and Deployment of the evidence-based BRAVEMIND system for use with military personnel, Veterans, and civilians affected by war-related trauma internationally. -
Metaverse-Enabled Social Support Environments
Clinician-facilitated virtual worlds designed to increase access to care and peer support for displaced individuals and refugees, including discussion of recent randomized controlled trial findings demonstrating outcomes comparable to in-person group interventions. -
VR Approaches for Adverse Childhood Experiences and Trauma Narrative Development
Use of immersive virtual play-based environments, including Virtual Sandtray methods, to support emotional expression and narrative processing in children affected by conflict and trauma. -
VR-Enhanced Mindfulness and Resilience Training
Immersive stress-reduction and meditation-based applications designed to support emotional regulation, resilience, and recovery as non-pharmacological adjuncts to PTSD treatment.
The presentation will examine key challenges in the design, implementation, dissemination, and ethical deployment of VR mental health technologies across diverse populations and clinical settings. The session will conclude with a forward-looking discussion of how AI-enabled Virtual Human support agents may extend mental health care beyond the therapy office and increase access to psychologically informed support.
Learning Objectives
At the conclusion of this course, participants will be able to:
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Define Virtual Reality (VR) and describe its use in clinical assessment, psychotherapy, and behavioral health research.
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Explain the theoretical and clinical rationale for using VR to deliver exposure-based interventions for anxiety disorders and PTSD.
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Evaluate the research findings from early and contemporary studies using VR-based prolonged exposure therapy with OIF/OEF Service Members and Veterans.
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Describe recent extensions of VR PTSD interventions for military sexual trauma (MST), civilian trauma, and war-related trauma in Ukrainian and Israeli/Gazan populations.