From Setback to Comeback: A Virtual Reality-Based Self-Compassion Intervention for Injured Athletes

The integration of virtual reality (VR) technology into psychological interventions represents an innovative approach to enhancing therapeutic engagement and ecological validity. VR’s capacity to create immersive, controllable environments offers unique advantages for addressing the complex psychological challenges associated with sports injury recovery. Unlike traditional therapeutic approaches that rely primarily on verbal processing, VR enables embodied experiences that more closely approximate real-world sporting contexts while maintaining the safety and control necessary for therapeutic work. For injured athletes, VR simulation can recreate sport-specific environments, from pre-competition preparation spaces to competitive arenas, allowing for graduated exposure to performance-related stimuli without physical demands or injury risk. This technological approach addresses a common limitation in sports psychology interventions: the difficulty of creating realistic practice opportunities for psychological skills when athletes are physically unable to participate in their sport.