Temporality in Virtual Reality Interventions for Depressive Episodes. A Scoping Review

Background/Objectives: People living with depression often experience consistent disruptions in the experience of time, which contribute to their suffering, and are considered a diagnostic indicator. We present a scoping review on virtual reality (VR)-based interventions for depression addressing temporal processing or subjective experiences of time. The paper aims to explore the extent to which therapeutic interventions using virtual reality target the temporal dimension of patients' experiences. Methods: We conducted a scoping review, using the PRISMA 2020 standard. The literature search was extended using Research Rabbit and reference list searches. Seventeen papers were selected for final analysis. Results: Our scoping review indicates that the topic of time in VR-based therapeutic interventions for depression remains underrepresented. Of the seventeen papers reviewed, only two explicitly deal with this issue, while the rest touch upon it briefly or implicitly. The studies suggest that VR's main advantage in modifying the experience of time in depression is its potential to generate immersion and to scaffold imagination through visualization. The main limitations are methodological: most of the research is exploratory, reports short-term effects and utilizes a wide variety of empirical designs and therapeutic approaches.