The Role of Temporality in Virtual Reality Interventions for Depressive Episodes-A Scoping Review

Background/Objectives: People living with depression often experience consistent disruptions in their experience of time, which further contributes to their suffering. We present a scoping review on virtual reality (VR)-based interventions for depression, addressing temporal processing and subjective experiences of time. The paper aims to explore the extent to which therapeutic interventions using VR target the temporal dimension of patients' experiences. Methods: We conducted a scoping review using the PRISMA 2020 standard. The literature search was further extended using Research Rabbit and by examining the reference lists of relevant articles. Seventeen papers were selected for final analysis. Results: Our scoping review indicates that temporality in VR-based therapeutic interventions for depression remains underrepresented. Of the seventeen papers reviewed, only two explicitly deal with this issue, while the rest touch upon it briefly or implicitly. The studies suggest that VR's main advantage in modifying the experience of time in depression is its potential to generate immersion and to scaffold imagination through visualization. The main limitations are methodological: most of the available research is exploratory, reports short-term effects, and utilizes a broad variety of empirical designs and therapeutic approaches.