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Using virtual technology, St. Joseph’s Health Care London is bringing the outdoors in for forensic mental health care patients.

Imagine sitting on a white sandy beach in a tropical location. The sun warms your face and a gentle breeze ripples across the water when, out of the corner of your eye, you spot a sea turtle slowly and curiously approaching. 

You turn your gaze towards this beautiful creature and watch in wonder. You’ve never seen a sea turtle up close like this before.

For some, this type of experience is part of a dream vacation, attainable with enough money or imagination. But for many patients at St. Joseph’s Health Care London’s Southwest Centre for Forensic Mental Health Care (Southwest Centre) – including those not yet well enough to leave the facility – a new virtual-reality connection to nature offers a missing link in their journey towards recovery.

Immersive experiences in nature have been linked to positive mental health outcomes and a healthier sense of self – a benefit that staff researchers at Southwest Centre call eco-spirituality.  

Occupational therapists Jared Scott, Clark Heard, and spiritual care practitioner Stephen Yeo, have explored just what this means for patients. Through a novel study published in 2022, Southwest Centre patients were provided with opportunities to become immersed in nature in the community, with tremendous therapeutic results.  

The patients experienced a stronger connection with nature, a chance for open reflection and relaxation, and a restorative experience that provided a sense of peace and personal significance.

"There's something very human about connecting with, or in, nature ... It offers a sense of connectedness, whether to creativity, to beauty or the transcendent." spiritual care practitioner Stephen Yeo

The research team wondered if these experiences could be replicated in a virtual reality (VR) environment for patients who aren’t yet able to leave the facility.  

“We realized we can translate these types of experiences through VR goggles where the patient has the ability to make their choices on how to engage,” says Heard. “This enables someone to experience something that's a little harder to touch in real life.”

For example, if the patient wishes to sit and reflect on a beach, they can. If they wish to be immersed in the jungle and experience giraffes and elephants walking among them, the choice is theirs.  

“There’s something very human about connecting with, or in, nature,” adds Yeo. “True, virtual reality is not the same as the real thing, but we believe it offers a sense of connectedness, whether to creativity, to beauty or the transcendent. We see how it enlivens patients, even in sometimes very simple, subtle ways.”

Heard believes that this type of immersive experience nurtures the innate intellectual curiosity present in everyone.

“The first time people try it and look over their shoulder, they realize it's a full 360-degree experience. They look above and there are birds flying over them the same as anywhere else,” he explains.

Ultimately, Heard and Yeo believe the power and innovative experience of eco-VR is encouraging discovery in patients, energizing them at an intellectual and spiritual level.

With the purchase of VR equipment made possible through community support from donors to St. Joseph’s Health Care Foundation, the team has embarked on an eco-VR study, looking at what patients experience via VR and how that participation impacts their care journey. They are exploring with patients whether VR immersion in nature helps them cope with being in hospital at a difficult time in their lives.

Far beyond forensic mental health care, the answer just may open the door to a world out of reach for many others receiving care in various settings.  

Psychiatry at Southwest Centre for Forensic Mental Health Care

St. Joseph’s Health Care London’s Southwest Centre for Forensic Mental Health Care (Southwest Centre), located in Elgin County, is devoted to caring for people with a mental illness who have also come into contact with the criminal justice system.  

Encompassing a recovery philosophy of care, the state-of-the-art building provides a healing environment that promotes each individual’s journey of recovery.

The Forensic Psychiatry Program at Southwest Centre includes assessment, treatment and rehabilitation programs, and an outpatient Forensic Outreach Team that serves Southwestern Ontario. Through intensive work with their care teams, patients develop new skills needed to successfully reintegrate back into their communities.