Surely, this question has plagued the minds of the creators of VR headsets such as the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and more recently, the more reasonably priced and accessible PlayStation VR. Now, I'm someone who has suffered from depression and anxiety for a long time. So long, in fact, I can hardly remember a time before the great depression began.
Now with the release of all these new headsets, I find myself more than tempted to save up and purchase one of them, but there are quite a number of things a consumer like me should be concerned about, like "Will it make me want to go sit in the bathroom and cry"? "Will it make me hyperventilate or struggle to breathe?" I mean the only warning the PlayStation VR has is that no one under the age of 12 should use it (that's something at least, because I would not let my kid brother use it under any circumstances) I mean these devices throw you into different worlds, where you'll be seeing things from another person's eye, and often these games are designed to stress you out or to scare you, there have to be some mental and psychological ramifications.
Some gamers have complained that intense segments in a VR game cause them to have a severe panic attack that they aren't able to control. Put yourself in their shoes for a minute:
You put the headset on and adjust it to fit just right... All you see now is black... You don't hear anything, you don't see anything. Silence. THEN! The image springs forward and you suddenly find yourself in a world you're unfamiliar with, a world that looks and feels real, but isn't. Maybe it's quiet. Maybe you're alone. You're alone and you don't know where you are. You begin to feel uneasy. The virtual open space makes your head start to spin ever so slightly. As you begin to wander around in the empty open world, you come across a ghost town. The strong wind causes shutters to bang violently, and doors to creak.
You can hear your own footsteps all the way. But then, you hear the footsteps of another, and you panic. You look around and there's no one there. No one. You continue on your path and the footsteps return, only louder and louder and angrier, and there is no one you can see. No one. You stop, and the footsteps begin to circle you.
You can see the footprints in the sand appearing and disappearing at the same time, and it all gets louder and louder, windier and windier, and out of the winds, a whaling demon with red eyes appears right before you and whales a great deal of wind onto your face for a good moment. For that moment, you are terrified, you are trapped, you can't see, it all begins to blur, you don't know what to do. Since the start of the game, you've been anxious, it has all built up to this one moment, it has all built up to this one pull of the trigger... AND-
That's it. That's all it would take. Once the attack happens, nothing else matters. The day is done.
Now, on the other hand, some developers have decided to create games and applications for VR that help get rid of depression and anxiety. This is what is known as "Virtual Reality Therapy" and apparently it's the next big thing. These VR experiences are said to calm you and effectively heal your troubles. There is a game called "Deep" which is about scuba diving in the deep oceans, this is one such game that helps with anxiety.
A player recalled his experiences with it and he was stunned by what he witnessed. He said he couldn't believe the results. What the game does is that it lets you go underwater and instructs you on how to handle your breathing and teaches you different breathing exercises. The player said that no other treatment has been as effective for him as Virtual Reality Therapy has proven to be. Due to the successful nature of these treatments, a number of other phobias are now being treated with "Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy", which encompasses a whole range of phobias from fear of flying, PTSD and even something as simple as dental procedures.
So there are both positives and negatives with regards to the impact Virtual Reality has on anxiety and depression, but the takeaway from this is to just be cautious, in which ever way you use it.