Auditory Verbal Hallucinations: can Beliefs about Voices Mediate the Relationship Patients establish with them and Negative Affect?

Distress factors of voice-hearing in young people and social relating: Exploring a cognitive-interpersonal voice-hearing model

OBJECTIVES

Little is known about the factors that can maintain the distress related to voice-hearing experiences in youth. Building upon understandings developed with adults, this study aimed to explore the associations between negative relating between hearer and voices, persecutory beliefs about voices and voice-related distress in a clinical sample of adolescents. The study also aimed to investigate associations between relating to voices and wider patterns of social relating.

DESIGN

This was an observational, cross-sectional, survey study.

METHODS

Thirty-four young people (age 14-18 years) who were hearing voices completed measures about voices (characteristics, relating and beliefs) and relating to social others (negative relating styles, social connectedness and belongingness). Participants were patients of NHS mental health services. Bivariate correlations explored associations between relating to voices and distress, beliefs about voices and distress, and between relating to voices and social relating variables.

RESULTS

Perceiving the voices as dominant, intrusive, and persecutory and resisting them was significantly associated with distress. Adjusting for loudness and negative content rendered the association between persecutory beliefs and distress non-significant. Fear of separation and of being alone in relation to social others was associated with distancing from voices. Being suspicious, uncommunicative and self-reliant and/or being sadistic and intimidating towards social others was significantly associated with dependence towards the voices. Greater hearer-to-voice dependence was associated with lower perceived social belongingness and connectedness.

CONCLUSIONS

Beliefs about voices being persecutory, dominant, intrusive and resisting voices seem to be significant contributors of distress in young people. In terms of proximity and power, relating to voices and social others appears to be contrasting.

A relationship of sorts: gender and auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia spectrum disorders

Voice hearing has been conceptualized as an interrelational framework, where the interaction between voice and voice hearer is reciprocal and resembles "real-life interpersonal interactions." Although gender influences social functioning in "real-life situations," little is known about respective effects of gender in the voice hearing experience. One hundred seventeen participants with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder took part in a semi-structured interview about the phenomenology of their voices and completed standardized self-rating questionnaires on their beliefs about their most dominant male and female voices and the power differentials in their respective voice-voice hearer interactions. Additionally, the voice hearers' individual masculine/feminine traits were recorded. Men heard significantly more male than female dominant voices, while the gender ratio of dominant voices was balanced in women. Although basic phenomenological characteristics of voices were similar in both genders, women showed greater amounts of distress caused by the voices and reported a persistence of voices for longer time periods. Command hallucinations that encouraged participants to harm others were predominantly male. Regarding voice appraisals, high levels of traits associated with masculinity (=instrumentality/agency) correlated with favorable voice appraisals and balanced power perceptions between voice and voice hearer. These positive effects seem to be more pronounced in women. The gender of both voice and voice hearer shapes the voice hearing experience in manifold ways. Due to possible favorable effects on clinical outcomes, therapeutic concepts that strengthen instrumental/agentic traits could be a feasible target for psychotherapeutic interventions in voice hearing, especially in women.

OUVIDORES DE VOZES DE UM SERVIÇO DE SAÚDE MENTAL: CARACTERÍSTICAS DAS VOZES E ESTRATÉGIAS DE ENFRENTAMENTO

Resumo Objetivou-se compreender a experiência de ouvir vozes a partir das características e conteúdos das vozes, e das estratégias utilizadas por dezesseis ouvidores usuários de um Centro de Atenção Psicossocial do Sul do Brasil. Trata-se de uma pesquisa qualitativa de caráter exploratório. Se deu através de entrevistas semiestruturadas e análise de conteúdo. Evidenciou-se que as características e conteúdos das vozes podem ser determinantes das reações emocionais dos ouvidores frente à experiência, sendo mais difícil lidar com ela quando os conteúdos são negativos. Através das estratégias utilizadas pelos ouvidores, percebeu-se uma resistência ao modelo biomédico, mesmo dentro de um serviço de saúde mental. Conclui-se que há uma necessidade de se pensar outras possibilidades de recuperação para as pessoas que ouvem vozes, que deem conta da complexidade da experiência e que sejam condizentes com o modelo de atenção psicossocial.