Alexander Miloff after his dissertation. Photo: Per Carlbring.

You recently defended your thesis Virtual reality exposure therapy for spider phobia. What is the thesis about and what are your main conclusions?

Spider phobia is typically considered a chronic condition unless treated, but effective interventions are available. The gold-standard treatment for spider phobia involves exposure to increasingly large in-vivo spiders with the help of a psychotherapist, but the novel automated treatment we developed with a local Stockholm tech start-up (Mimerse AB) indicates that similar efficacy is possible even with virtual spiders and a virtual voice-guided therapist, i.e., no human therapist needed.

Assessment of the therapeutic relationship with the virtual therapist according to a novel measure we developed was found to be predictive of treatment outcome at follow-up.

Finally, participant qualitative and quantitative ratings of what they fear most about spiders emphasized movement characteristics, therefore future generations of exposure therapy should continue to prioritize spider movement for ensuring good treatment efficacy.

I enjoyed listening to the dissertation through Zoom, and I think you did really well. How was your own experience, maybe not quite what you figured it would be a few years ago...

I was actually surprised how much I enjoyed the experience! I think that must have come through in my presentation. I had a lot of nerves going into it, but sometime in the early hours of the morning on defense day I started to relax and despite 3hrs of discussion probably could have gone for a few more. It was actually an experience of gratitude I felt for the whole PhD: for my topic, for the people involved, and for all the development I had during these years.

The defense is definitely not the experience I had imagined, and that’s probably a good thing!

You are from Canada. How did you end up in Sweden and what are your plans for the near future?

I grew up with a father who was very fond of the Swedish welfare state and remember hearing lengthy descriptions of its forward thinking social systems and what a wonderful country it was. Later in my early years at a University in Canada, I learned that the Swedish Psychologist training approach was similar to that of the UK and North America, although I’ve never been able to confirm that. When an American girlfriend started a PhD at Karolinska (due to my encouragement) I finally decided that I should join her and see what living in Sweden would be like. That turned out to be a very wise decision.

In the short-term I plan on returning to Canada to complete my registration as a Psychologist, but I really hope to be back again in the future.

Would you recommend others to do their PhD at the Department of Psychology, Stockholm University? Any tips for anyone interested or for those who have recently been accepted..?

Studying at the Department of Psychology has been a highlight of my life and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to others. The Department’s greatest strength is its people and I’ve had great relationships with colleagues from the most senior members of the faculty to its newest research assistants and PhD students.

I would encourage any individual interested in doing doctoral work to reach out to a professor and get involved. A tip for a new PhD student would be to take it slow, try to be organized, don’t stress, you have plenty of time to finish.