A Case Study of Video See-Through HMD in Military Counseling Service

In Korea, the military has been conducting counseling forthe preemptive detection of psychologically unstable soldiers to prevent unexpected accidents and to help them adapt to military life. However, several soldiers feel anxious about face-to-face counseling with military officers and they have difficulty expressing themselves. Video See-Through HMD is a state-of-the-art mixed reality device that converts the user's real view into a digital view, which leads users to feel the actual situation as the virtual. To validate its usefulness as a new psychological counseling aid, we investigated 11 army soldiers who are under the counseling program in barracks. During the counseling conversation, participants were asked to wear or take off the Video See-Through HMD repeatedly. All conversations were recorded for behavioral observation. As a result, 80% of the soldiers showed a relatively stable state of mind when wearing the Video See-Through HMD, which leads them to be innocent and frank about their concerns. This method could improve the effectiveness of counseling to prevent unexpected accidents caused by unnoticeable psychological instabilities of the clients.