They were then transferred into the Freud virtual body, and from that perspective could see and hear their virtual doppelganger explain the problem. Participants were embodied in scanned copies of themselves in immersive virtual reality (VR) and explained a personal problem to a virtual representation of Dr Sigmund Freud. 2 introduced such a technique for self-counselling. In reality this would be a conversation with yourself, but mediated through two embodied perspectives – that of yourself and that of the other. Suppose that instead of imagining a problem from the perspective of another you were actually able to have a conversation with yourself about it, but from the embodied perspective of another. Indeed Grossmann and Kross 1 showed that when participants are instructed to consider a problem from a third person perspective (which they refer to as ‘distancing’) they are wiser in solving a personal problem than when considering it from a first person perspective. This has been termed ‘Solomon’s Paradox’, named after the biblical King Solomon who was wise for others, but not so when it came to making decisions that would have an impact on his own standing 1. We are usually much better in giving advice to a friend in trouble than we are to ourselves. We consider the method as a possible strategy for self-counselling. We compare this method with the distancing paradigm where participants imagine resolving a problem from a first or third person perspective. The results showed that the Self-Conversation method results in a greater perception of change and help compared to the Scripted. An experiment was carried out with 58 people, 29 in the body swapping Self-Conversation condition and 29 in a condition where they only spoke to a Scripted Freud character. Here we show that the process of alternating between their own and the Freud body is important for successful psychological outcomes. Alternating between the two bodies they could maintain a self-dialogue, as if between two different people. They could maintain a self-conversation by explaining their problem to the virtual Freud and then from the embodied perspective of Freud see and hear the explanation by their virtual doppelganger, and then give some advice. A previous study showed how it is possible to enact internal dialogue in virtual reality (VR) through participants alternately occupying two different virtual bodies – one representing themselves and the other Sigmund Freud.

When faced with a personal problem people typically give better advice to others than to themselves.

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