A new therapy which involves a patient embodying themselves in a virtual reality avatar of a crying child could help with depression, research has suggested.

The new research tested the technology for the first time on patients with a mental health problem. The project is part of a continuing study at University College London.

The university, which is working in collaboration with ICREA-University of Barcelona, has suspected for several years that virtual therapy could help with mental health conditions.

This latest research — which has been published in the British Journal of Psychiatry Open and was funded by the Medical Research Council — lays the basis for a large-scale clinical trial to be carried out in the future.

The study took some people who were all being treated by the NHS for depression and put them through the avatar experience. Firstly, the patients were asked to put on a headset which projected an adult version of themselves into a virtual reality mirror.

The patient was asked to mentally identify with the adult avatar, which exactly replicated the patient's body movements, in a process known as "embodiment". They then noticed a separate avatar of a small crying child, who was also in the mirror. They were told to say compassionate phrases to the child to try and comfort and console it.

Patients asked the child to think of a time when it was happy and to think of someone who loved them. At this stage of the experiment the roles were then reversed.