Thera VR Inc.

My name is Erin, and I'm a psychotherapist and founder of Thera VR Inc. I used to work in a very busy, flooded psychiatric hospital treating children and teens with extreme mental health issues. Almost every child admitted suffered from suicidal attempts, self harming and serious drug overdoses, which inevitably led kids into the ER. Afterwards the path is for kids and teens to be committed to an inpatient facility. After working in the system, I noticed one fundamental truth ; my patients were not getting any better, but only getting worse. Treating them with more and more medications, as young as nine years old, was creating a mass medication dependency, and at times even more severe mental health episodes. The crux that inspired me to invent Thera VR Inc, was my patients... one being a 14 yr old girl who went into psychosis and ran into the street. This happened while she was in treatment in group therapy, which then the first responders and police had been called in to get her off the road. Despite her being on multiple medications, I had noticed prior, that her symptoms were getting worse. However physicians continue treatment as usual, up-dosing her medications with very little psychotherapy.

After being in the street, almost hit by on coming traffic, surrounded by police, and other staff she was terrified and refused to get off the road. To her, she did not feel safe with all those strangers, noise, and chaos. Being her therapist, I attempted to intervene, and did one thing--allowed her to trust me, and feel safe. Getting on my hands and knees in the road, making direct eye contact and allowing her to see my face, she became lucid and embraced me. I carried her from the road, to the ambulance which she then was stabilized.

That moment, where a child or teen is in the state of suicide, cutting, or major episodes, it takes a real person to step in and deliver the therapy needed at the time. However, given the hundreds of patients being admitted again and again, I saw one thing that provided better traction, the use of technology which is social. Thera VR Inc is not about replacing the therapist, it is about allowing the therapist to deliver a better way to provide therapy in Virtual Reality. Whether the avatar is a simulation of the real provider this is all based on the preference of the child. They can chose a different gender, skin color or even a teddy bear... the concept is that the patient feels safe and their social anxiety is reduced. This is combined by the science of biometric tracking, which allows the safest standards and protocols to measure the patient's vitals. This experience my patient had being able to feel safe by going to someone she trusted, is the simulation I have created with the avatar experience.

Thera VR Inc is also about prevention. Knowing that my patient who fled in the street could have had more tools in the home to meet with her therapist weekly, may have allowed the clinician to see the warning signs of a potential episode, then support the MDs in knowing this was a high risk situation. 20 Children attempt suicide a day in the US, including SUD, and self harming. Getting more accessible care through tele-health by using the innovation of VR will help save lives, by getting more providers to be there for kids, provide real evidence based care, and combine the science and beneficials results of using Virtual Reality.

Myself and Co Founder Amit Jain ( Former CTO) , came together in a business program in California in 2018 which we built our first prototype. This then led to a fully functional tele-health platform which can now service tens of thousands of patients, can be used in any State at any time, both for hospital systems and private practice. I created Thera VR Inc. not just to solve the problem, but also to improve the outdated policies and system of care which is so dangerously broken. The new Thera VR launched 2023 , is developed and designed by one of the leading VR labs at Shenandoah University, and has published proof of concept to the NIH.

The cost for every child who is admitted to the ER for psychiatric emergencies is $30,000. This is a huge burden at the public health national level. We need to get Thera VR Inc. to as many school age children, in every State, especially rural America. Doing so can stop or a least prevent more tragedy, including school shootings. With your investment, you will be paying our engineers, our marketing, IT costs and helping us get the new Thera VR Inc. to as many children's hospitals, private providers, and our hope school systems. The future of our nation's children are at stake as we shall see the highest rate of child psychiatric emergencies in history over the next ten years. Let's focus on the future which is using the emerging technologies which this younger population trusts and do it with compassion, and healing. With Gratitude - Erin Bogdanski, Founder, Psychotherapist , Thera VR Inc