Profiles Of The Participants
There were 12 men and 8 women, ranging in age from 22 to 55, who participated in the study. The mean age of the males was 44.1 years, and that of the females was 27 years. All the participants were living in half-way houses and were receiving comprehensive social security assistance . Most participants were unmarried. Five were working in sheltered workshops, and five in day activity centres 10 were unemployed . All participants were receiving psychiatric follow-up treatment and were currently on psychiatric medications. Nine of them had had the first onset of illness before they were 17 years old. Most had been ill for over 20 years. All had a history of hospitalization or admission to mental hospitals.
How To Block Out Voices And Weird Thoughts From Your Head
This article was co-authored by Trudi Griffin, LPC, MS. Trudi Griffin is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Wisconsin specializing in Addictions and Mental Health. She provides therapy to people who struggle with addictions, mental health, and trauma in community health settings and private practice. She received her MS in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Marquette University in 2011. This article has been viewed 82,573 times.
Most people hear the occasional voice or have a weird thought from time to time. Sometimes, though, this can be a sign of serious mental problems that do not resolve themselves but need medical intervention. If you are hearing voices or think that your thoughts are abnormal, it might be time to have a talk with your doctor or mental health professional about them.
Psychics Who Hear Voices Could Be On To Something
The ways some healthy voice hearers cope might be able to help people with psychotic disorders.
Jessica Dorner was lying in bed at her cousins house when her grandmother, a pushy lady in an apron who had been dead for several years, appeared in front of her. I know you can see me, Jessica heard her say, and you need to do something about it.
It was a lonely time in Jessicas life. She was living away from home for the first time, and she thinks her grandmother was drawn by some sense of that. She eventually told her parents what happened, and according to her they were concerned, but not overly panicked. My parents are probably the least judgmental people I know, she said.
As Jessica tells it, over the next two years, spirits visited her every now and again. Her brother-in-laws deceased father began forming before her, ghostlike, just as her grandmother did. And while the experiences were intense and at times made her feel crazy, she said, they were infrequent, and insists that they were never a real source of suffering.
Meeting others like her at the center gave Jessica a sense of relief. Just being around people who are going through similar thingsthat helps a lot, because I could talk to anybody about those things and not feel like I was crazy, she said.
Powers and Corletts work orbits the idea that schizophrenia is, as Powers put it, an outmoded label that describes a cluster of different symptoms rather than a single unified condition, he says.
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Struggling To Come To Terms With Limitations
The following two subthemes illuminate facets of the final phases of how the participants dealt with hearing voices and sounds: learning to live with the voices and sounds by recognizing patterns, approaching acceptance and identifying possibilities, and making sense of hearing voices and sounds.
Learning to live with hearing voices and sounds by recognizing patterns
Most participants eventually discerned patterns of how and when the voices and sounds emerged. The participants recognized which voice messages they could resist and which ones they were forced to resign to, depending on how fit or exhausted they were. When the voices were moderately troublesome, one participant merely turned on the radio, engaged in routine activities, such as tidying the kitchen, and became oblivious of the voices. When the voices intensified, several participants resolved to walk. One of them explained:
I try to do what I was meant to do but sometimes I just give it all up, because everything is, just gets muddled for me, and sometimes I hurry out and walk and walk hoping to get some peace.
Several of the participants kept diaries in which they expressed their emotions in relation to hearing voices and sorted out matters of importance. One participant expressed her anger toward the voices. Another participant noted the recommendations she received from health care providers. One participant considered writing a book based on his own diary.
Making sense of hearing voices and sounds
How To Stay In This Place Of Stillness
Most people, when they have a glimpse of this stillness of being, will then want to hold on to it or possess it.
This usually starts off another bout of suffering, where the mind now tries to constantly grab for the silence of being as a refuge from the voices. The truth is that you cannot stay in this place of stillness because the you trying to do this is just another noise. Noise cannot attain silence, the noise has to let go for silence to be.
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How Are Auditory Hallucinations Treated
The treatment for auditory hallucinations depends on the cause. Hallucinations caused by temporary conditions, such as extreme hunger or lack of sleep, will stop once the underlying condition has been treated or resolved.
Medications to manage auditory hallucinations
Healthcare providers only prescribe medication to manage auditory hallucinations if theyre part of an underlying chronic condition. Medications include:
- Neuroleptics : These medications may help decrease the frequency and severity of auditory hallucinations in people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. The antipsychotic medication clozapine is the most effective option for treating symptoms of schizophrenia, including hallucinations, but it can cause dangerous side effects that affect your blood.
- Psychotropic medications: Psychotropic medications, such as antidepressants and mood stabilizers, can help treat auditory hallucinations in people with severe depression or mania.
Psychotherapy for auditory hallucinations
For people with mental health conditions who experience auditory hallucinations, psychotherapy can help in conjunction with medication.
Psychotherapy is a term for a variety of treatment techniques that aim to help you identify and change troubling emotions, thoughts and behaviors. Working with a mental health professional, such as a psychologist or psychiatrist, can provide support, education and guidance to you and your family.
What Can I Do To Manage The Voices
People deal with voices in different ways. You might need to try different things before finding something that works for you.
Support groups
You could join a support group. A support group is where people come together to share information, experiences and give each other support. Hearing about the experiences of others can help you feel understood. This may help you feel less alone and boost your self-confidence.
You might be able to find a local group by searching online. The charity Hearing Voices Network have face to face support groups in some areas of the country. Their contact details are in the useful contacts at the end of this factsheet.
Rethink Mental Illness have support groups in some areas. You can find out what is available in your area, or get help to set up your own support group if you follow this link:
Or you can call the Rethink Mental Illness Advice Service on 0808 801 0525 for more information.
Recovery College
Recovery colleges are part of the NHS. They offer free courses about mental health to help you manage your symptoms. They can help you to take control of your life and become an expert in your own wellbeing and recovery. You can usually self-refer to a recovery college. But the college may tell your community mental health team.
Unfortunately, recovery colleges are not available in all areas. To see if there is a recovery college in your area you can click on this link:
Taking control of the voices
When you hear voices, you could:
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Because The Dtvs Use Communication Strategies That Capture Attention
Because the voices use calm, clever or calculated tactics
Because the voices shout, scream or make sinister noises
Several participants noted the voices got louder, it wasnt that easy to ignore them . For others it was their manner as well as volume: a real sick, sick kind of manner . For V9 a noise served as a means of the DTV capturing attention: when the voices have got your attention thats when the conversation can kind of start like the derogatory and the violent comments. She noted that some noises she has habituated to over time its not as effective as it used to be, its been going on for so long, but this hasnt happened with other noises I get like a sinister laugh which I still get like even to this day. Thats probably the only thing now that would get my attention more because its quite unnerving and because this noise is uncomfortable: Im almost listening for it.
Because they are constant or repetitive
Several participants noted listening to or believing voices because they are constant, or repeat what they say, e.g. And I think to myself why are you listening, its not worth listening to. But obviously thats easier said than done if you had constant noise and voices for like two, three, four, five days .
Context Of Voice Onset And Initial Responses
As soon as you mention voicesand you pick it up really earlyis they want to fill you up with medication. So it became quite secretive for me . . . I never told people about them . . . it wasnt until . . . I went to a workshop with . . . other voice-hearers that I actuallythat I started to talk about thembecause I was too embarrassed about telling people what was going on.
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What Are The Possible Causes Of Auditory Hallucinations
Several situations and conditions both temporary and chronic can cause auditory hallucinations.
Scientists dont yet know the exact mechanisms in your brain that cause auditory hallucinations, but they have a few theories, including:
- Spontaneous activation of the auditory network in your brain, which consists of the left superior temporal gyrus, transverse temporal gyri and the left temporal lobe.
- An imbalance of dopamine and serotonin, which are neurotransmitters.
Schizophrenia and auditory hallucinations
Approximately 75% of people with schizophrenia experience auditory hallucinations usually hearing voices.
Schizophrenia refers to both a single condition and a spectrum of conditions that fall under the category of psychotic disorders. These are conditions where a person experiences some form of disconnection from reality. Those disconnections can take several different forms, including experiencing hallucinations.
Schizophrenia is characterized by:
- Impaired reasoning and problem-solving.
- Occupational and social dysfunction.
Schizophrenia is a chronic condition that may progress through several phases, although the length and patterns of the phases can vary. People with schizophrenia are more likely to experience hallucinations during the active phase.
Other mental health conditions that can cause auditory hallucinations
People with other mental health conditions can experience auditory hallucinations. They affect:
Hearing impairment and hallucinations
Changing Perception And Meaning Toward The Voices
Another important way that participants influenced the course of their voice hearing was through a shift in perception and meaning which could lead to alternation of their help seeking behaviors. An important aspect of this shift appeared to be the development of a balance or compromise between the voices and themselves. With the new meaning towards the voices, they might consider the voices as a part of themselves and of their lives and could feel more in control of the voices. There is a growing ability to accept the voices as inevitable and to trust the professionals and receive help and treatment from them, as made clear by Participant Alfred:
I did not share my voice hearing experience with others as I believed that others did not know about my illness and would look down on me. I would only talk about my voice hearing to those understood my illness Now, I can take the initiative to tell my psychiatrist about my voices though I would not share with my friends who are ignorant about my illness.
There is also a growing awareness of the significance of the impacts of the voices and of finding ways to solve problems in daily life that are linked to voice hearing. They had the confidence to talk about their voices, particularly with professionals, such as psychiatrists and social workers. Participant Catherine put it this way:
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How To Stop The Voices In My Head
You cannot know what silence is if there was no noise. So the noise is essential for silence to know itself.
In the same way, the formless one consciousness takes form in order to know itself. Negative thoughts, or the rampant voices in your head, are nothing but subtle forms that arise in the space of the formless consciousness. They can cause a lot of suffering, but they can also become the portal through which you can find out the truth of who you are, and transcend suffering completely.
The voices that you hear in your head is mostly just noise trying to sort itself out, and it will not be a problem if you dont get entangled in it. Just knowing this truth conceptually is however not useful in any way and it does not help you stop, or find relief, from the voices that keep pounding in your head.
A few pointers and insights are given below that will help you move in a direction that can permanently give relief from the constant disturbance created by the speaking mind.
Because I Hear The Voice Of Someone I Know
A number of participants described hearing the voice of family members, friends, ex-friends, famous people and other people they had met momentarily which made DTVs more difficult to question or ignore. For some, the voice content was congruent with what was known about the person they are doing exactly what they did when I fell out with them and for others it was incongruent technically you would think I should go well, I know them, they wouldnt say that . Four participants commented that hearing a voice of someone familiar was more difficult: when its family theres um probably about 100% um theres 100% on top .
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Medication And Treatment Adherence
Relapses of hallucinations and other psychotic symptoms are most often due to a persons failure to take their medications as prescribed. Medication and treatment adherence can be challenging, especially considering the confusion that comes with psychotic episodes. But effective routines can be established in the right treatment environment, especially in a residential setting where positive habits and treatment strategies are integrated and immersive.
Motivational interviewing can help clients to tap into their own sources of strength and hope to fuel their recovery. Simultaneous life and job skills training can help individuals to build confidence and independence. And a comprehensive after-care plan and support system are also critical to ensure long-term treatment adherence and recovery success. With the right psychosis treatment program, all of these supportive therapies are available in the same place.
The bottom line is that treatment is available and effective for that person in your life who is hearing voices and feeling lost. By accessing and sustaining that treatment, recovery is very possible.
I’ve Been Using Your Methods For A While And The Entitiesare Still Speaking To Me
Sure they are! You’ll get nowhere fast if you cling to that misunderstanding of the truenature of those manifestations. It’s essential that you completely drop thinking of anycommunications at all that appear to be coming from non-physical sources as coming fromactual beings or ‘entities’, and likewise essential that you don’t interact withthose apparent communications in any way at all.
The presentation of my workingmodel on this site goes to considerable lengths to explain that any apparent non-physicalbeings or ‘entities’ that communicate with one in any way need to be understood to be illusorymanifestations caused by the garbage,which itself is just a mass of rogue programming in ‘thought energy’ in many waysresembling a computer virus. Similarly, your clearance process will be blocked as long asyou think in terms of sending the source of the communications away, because you’d bebarking up the wrong tree.
You can’t send it away because it’s not there in the firstplace! Instead, your intent needs to be focused on dissolvingthe illusions that the garbageis creating and cultivating in your mindspace, and progressively immunizing yourselfagainst the intruded creation of such illusions. That can’t happen until you stopregarding the illusions as ‘real’ beings / ‘entities’ and fully recognise them as illusorymanifestations, so that you’re absolutely clear that there’s nothing there for you tointeract with.
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Helping A Loved One With Schizophrenia
Coping with a loved one who is struggling with schizophrenia and hearing voices can take a tollbut try not to lose hope. With the right treatment, your loved one may be able to control the frequency and severity of these voices.
You also may consider family therapy, which can help you and your loved one recognize these auditory hallucinations and develop strategies to better cope. In order to support both yourself and your loved one you can:
You might also find it helpful to join a support group where you can talk to other people who have similar experiences. The National Alliance on Mental Illness and The Schizophrenia and Psychosis Action Alliance list options that you might consider.