ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Psychology for Clinical Settings
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1597831
"Mom, what are you painting?" Virtual reality assessment of mother–daughter dynamics through joint art-making
Provisionally accepted
- Ono Academic College, Kiryat Ono, Tel Aviv District, Israel
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The current study explored the use of the Virtual Reality Joint Painting Procedure (VR-JPP) to examine the relationship dynamics between mother-daughter dyads in middle childhood (ages 9 to 12), through art-based interventions in the virtual reality space. Interviews were conducted with 16 mothers and yielded three main themes: dyadic communication in the virtual reality space, the advantages and disadvantages of three-dimensional painting in virtual reality, and the tripartite relationship between the therapist, mother, and daughter in the therapeutic space. The findings suggest that virtual reality fostered an innovative therapeutic space that encourages freer and more open interactions between mothers and daughter using avatars that enable unmediated emotional expression. The virtual space allowed the dyads to focus on emotional and creative communication and increased their grasp of relationship dynamics. These findings contribute to the literature on the uses of art in the virtual reality space from the perspective of mothers.
Keywords: virtual reality, JPP, Mother-daughter relations, Dyadic therapy, Art-based intervention, Art Therapy
Received: 24 Mar 2025; Accepted: 16 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Bernhard and Shamri Zeevi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Aya Bernhard, bernhard.aya@gmail.com
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