Abstract:

Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) is a rare and complicated disorder related to the individuals who feel a severe misconfiguration between the physical body and internal body image so that they usually desire to amputate healthy limbs. There are no currently established treatment strategies of long-term clinical response in an ethically accepted or valid manner.This paper proposes a new solution of applying augmented reality (AR) technology to stimulate the process of amputation and measure its impact on the BIID-related distress.Two men with BIID took part in a pilot experiment with an AR system named Augmented Reality Telepresence to the Ideal Self (ART-IS). The computer assisted technology allowed their alienated limbs to be virtually removed using head mounted displays and chroma key imaging. The verbal Likert scale and the physiological markers such as the rate of heart rate, respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) as well as pre-ejection period were considered to evaluate the symptom reactions.Both of the patients showed a condition of temporary but significant distinction in symptoms when exposed to AR. The responses have shown to be mostly positive in the emotional front, but the physiological evidence showed engagement but not increased distress. One patient has said that she was symptom-free several days after the session.Such results allow assuming that visual simulation of the ideal body image in AR could have both therapeutic and diagnostic importance when used by people with BIID. There is a need to carry out further research on bigger samples and longer follow-up studies.

Authors: Dr. Mei-Ling Chen¹, Dr. Li-Hua Wang²

Vol.2(2); Pages:1-9. Published on October 2025