[Article of Interest] Schizophrenia: When Hallucinatory Voices Suppress Real Ones, New Electronic Application May Help
By Elin Fugelsnes/Else Lie; translation by Glenn Wells/Carol B. Eckmann.

Excerpt from the article: “Every one of us hears inner voices or melodies from time to time. The difference between non-afflicted individuals and schizophrenia patients is that the former manage to tune these out better,” the professor points out.

If patients could learn to stifle inner noise it could have a huge impact on our ability to treat schizophrenia, he states. To this end, Professor Hugdahl’s research group has developed an application that can be used on mobile phones and other simple electronic devices, to help patients improve their filters.

Wearing headphones, the patient is exposed to simple speech sounds with different sounds played in each ear. The task is to practice hearing the sound in one ear while blocking out sound in the other. The application has only been tested on two patients with schizophrenia so far. The response from these patients is promising, Dr Hugdahl relates.

“The voices are still there, but the test subjects feel that they have control over the voices instead of the other way around. The patient feels it is a breakthrough since it means he can actively shift his focus from the inner voices over to the sounds coming from the outside,” the professor explains.