Immersive Virtual Reality Environments as Psychoanalytic Settings: A Conceptual Framework for Modeling Unconscious...

Background: Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) is gaining increasing relevance in the field of mental health as a tool for therapeutic simulation and embodied experience. However, most existing VR applications are grounded in cognitive-behavioral frameworks, leaving unexplored the integration of symbolic, intersubjective, and unconscious dimensions. Psychoanalysis-particularly its constructs of setting, rêverie, and transference-offers a unique epistemological basis for designing therapeutic environments that engage implicit emotional processes. Aim: This paper aims to develop a conceptual framework for modeling IVR-based therapeutic settings inspired by psychoanalytic theory and enhanced through IoT-enabled biosensing technologies. Methods/Approach: We propose a three-layer architecture: (1) a somatic layer involving IoT-based real-time physiological monitoring (e.g., heart rate variability, galvanic skin response, eye-tracking, EEG); (2) a symbolic-narrative layer where the VR environment dynamically adapts to the user's affective state through immersive visual and auditory stimuli; and (3) a relational layer where AI-driven avatars simulate transferential dynamics. The model is theoretically grounded in psychoanalytic literature and informed by current advances in affective computing and bioengineering. Conclusions: By bridging psychoanalytic metapsychology and bioengineering design, this framework proposes a novel approach to therapeutic IVR systems that move beyond explicit cognition to engage the embodied unconscious. The integration of IoT biosignals enables the mapping and modulation of internal states within a structured symbolic space, opening new pathways for the clinical application of digital psychoanalysis.