Modern research in the field of virtualistics concerns the problem of studying the impact of virtual reality on the state of a person’s personality. This perspective of research concerns the issue of corrective and therapeutic use of the potential of virtual reality in solving problems of practical psychology. The experimental study presented in the work is devoted to the study of the influence of virtual reality on the state of anxiety in senior schoolchildren (senior adolescence and early adolescence). In the framework of the diagnostic stage (before and after the experimental exposure), the following were used: Phillips’ School Anxiety Test and Color Sociometry. At the experimental — formative stage — schoolchildren who were diagnosed with high (17.5%) and increased levels of anxiety (30.1%) were included in a virtual reality program to overcome nytophobia. The results of the study confirmed the hypothesis of a decrease in the indicators of the state of anxiety in the study participants; the changes on the scale “General anxiety” of changes in the high level of anxiety φ* = 3.3 (p≤ 0.001) were significant. Micro-changes in color attribution values occurred for all color groups, but significant changes in preferences for self-attribution of crimson color φ* = 2.84 (p ≤ 0.05), and brown color also gave significant results φ* = 3.6 ** (p ≤ 0.001), which may indirectly confirm changes in the state of anxiety in older students

This paper describes the correction of psychological defenses and anxiety of students through virtual training programs to optimize the educational process. The materials of an empirical study obtained on a sample of students of Smolensk universities are presented. The study involved respondents (N=63) aged 18 to 25 years (M=19.4, SD=0.25), of which 84% were male, 16% were female. The study was conducted in several stages. For the correction of mental characteristics were used, the test "Anxiety Research" was used (questionnaire of Ch.D. Spielberger-Yu.L. Khanina), the "Lifestyle Index" methodology, a virtual reality program to overcome nyctophobia. The reliability of the results obtained on changes in anxiety indicators and mechanisms of psychological protection of students was checked using the Fisher statistical criterion (F). The obtained results make it possible to say that the most sensitive to the effects of VR in the framework of the conversation were protective mechanisms: repression, regression, substitution, denial, which change the assessment of what is happening and the adequacy of behavioral and emotional reactions. Indicators for the "rationalization" mechanism in the control group and in the experimental group also underwent changes, but without significant results.