Certain professions carry a risk of experiencing traumatic events and sometimes developing Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Researchers have been working on strategies to prevent professionals in those fields from developing PTSD. Recently, there has been a focus on applying technology that supports these preventive strategies, especially in a military context. This chapter provides an overview of the state of the art in technology-supported resilience training for military professionals, which has considerable common ground with the interdisciplinary field of human computer confluence (HCC). The effectiveness of these technologies and the resilience strategies they support are reviewed through the literature.

To increase the accessibility and efficiency of virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) this paper proposes a system for home-based use where patients with social phobia are supported by a virtual health agent. We present an overview of our system design, and discuss key techniques such as (1) dialogue techniques to create automated free speech dialogue between virtual characters and patients in virtual reality worlds; (2) a multi-modal automatic anxiety feedback-loop mechanism to control patients’ anxiety level; and (3) motivational techniques applied by a virtual health agent. The system was evaluated in a pilot study where five patients with social phobia utilized our home-based VRET system. The results showed that the system was able to evoke the required anxiety in patients and that over time self-reported anxiety and heart rate gradually decreased as expected in exposure therapy.