Les applications de la réalité virtuelle se multiplient en psychiatrie légale. En plus d’améliorer significativement la validité écologique des designs de recherche et des évaluations cliniques, la réalité virtuelle tend également à s’imposer comme un outil d’intervention clinique privilégié. Toutefois, la pertinence de la réalité virtuelle en psychiatrie légale ne se limite pas à une seule dimension méthodologique, mais tient en grande partie au cadre théorique auquel elle fait appel. En permettant de rendre compte de la dynamique entre un agent et son environnement, la réalité virtuelle offre un dispositif unique pour étudier l’autorégulation des comportements violents telle qu’elle est susceptible de se vivre en milieux naturels, mais par le biais de la simulation graphique en immersion virtuelle.

Forensic psychiatry is the field whose expertise is the assessment and treatment of offending behaviours, in particular when offenses are related to mental illness. An underlying question for all etiological models concerns the manner in which an individual's behaviours are organized. Specifically, it becomes crucial to understand how certain individuals come to display maladaptive behaviours in a given environment, especially when considering issues such as offenders’ responsibility and their ability to change their behaviours.

Thanks to its ability to generate specific environments, associated with a high experimental control on generated simulations, virtual reality is gaining recognition in forensic psychiatry. Virtual reality has generated promising research data and may turn out to be a remarkable clinical tool in the near future. While research has increased, a conceptual work about its theoretical underpinnings is still lacking. However, no important benefit should be expected from the introduction of a new tool (as innovative as virtual reality) without an explicit and heuristic theoretical framework capable of clarifying its benefits in forensic psychiatry.

Our paper introduces self-regulation perspective as the most suitable theoretical framework for virtual reality in forensic psychiatry. It will be argued that virtual reality does not solely help to increase ecological validity. However, it does allow one to grant access to an improved understanding of violent offending behaviours by probing into the underlying mechanisms involved in the self-regulation of behaviours in a dynamical environment. Illustrations are given as well as a discussion regarding perspectives in the use of virtual reality in forensic psychiatry.