Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T13:49:58.113Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The auditory hallucination: a phenomenological survey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Tony H. Nayani  and
Anthony S. David
Tony H. Nayani
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine and Neuropsychiatry, King's College Hospital and the Institute of Psychiatry, London
Anthony S. David*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine and Neuropsychiatry, King's College Hospital and the Institute of Psychiatry, London
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr A. S. David, Department of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry, London SE5 8AF.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

A comprehensive semi-structured questionnaire was administered to 100 psychotic patients who had experienced auditory hallucinations. The aim was to extend the phenomenology of the hallucination into areas of both form and content and also to guide future theoretical development. All subjects heard ‘voices’ talking to or about them. The location of the voice, its characteristics and the nature of address were described. Precipitants and alleviating factors plus the effect of the hallucinations on the sufferer were identified. Other hallucinatory experiences, thought insertion and insight were examined for their inter-relationships. A pattern emerged of increasing complexity of the auditory–verbal hallucination over time by a process of accretion, with the addition of more voices and extended dialogues, and more intimacy between subject and voice. Such evolution seemed to relate to the lessening of distress and improved coping. These findings should inform both neurological and cognitive accounts of the pathogenesis of auditory hallucinations in psychotic disorders.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , January 1996 , pp. 177 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Aggernaes, A. (1972). The experienced reality of hallucinations and other psychological phenomena: an empirical analysis. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 48, 220–238.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Al-Issa, I. (1977). Social and cultural aspects of hallucinations. Psychological Bulletin 84, 570–587.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Almeida, O., Forstl, H., Howard, R. & David, A. S. (1993). Unilateral auditory hallucinations. British Journal of Psychiatry 162, 262–264.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
American Psychiatric Association (1980). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) 3rd edn.APA: Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Annett, M. (1970). A classification of hand preference by association analysis. British Journal of Psychology 61, 303–321.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Benjamin, L. (1989). Is chronicity a function of the relationship between the person and the auditory hallucination? Schizophrenia Bulletin 15, 291–310.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bentall, R., Baker, G. & Havers, S. (1991). Reality monitoring and psychotic hallucinations. British Journal of Clinical Psychology 30, 213–222.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Berrios, G. (1990). Musical hallucinations: a historical and clinical study. British Journal of Psychiatry 156, 188–194.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bick, P. & Kinsbourne, M. (1987). Auditory hallucinations and subvocal speech in schizophrenic patients. American Journal of Psychiatry 144, 222–225.Google ScholarPubMed
Bracha, H., Cabrera, F., Karson, C. & Bigelow, L. (1985). Lateralisation of visual hallucinations in chronic schizophrenia. Biological Psychiatry 20, 1132–1136.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chadwick, P. & Birchwood, M. (1994). The omnipotence of voices: a cognitive approach to auditory hallucinations. British Journal of Psychiatry 164, 190–201.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chaturvedi, S.0 & Sinha, V. (1990). Recurrence of hallucinations in consecutive episodes of schizophrenia and affective disorder. Schizophrenia Research 3, 103–106.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cleghorn, J. M., Franco, S., Szechtman, B., Kaplan, R., Szechtman, H., Brown, G. M., Nahmias, C. & Garnett, E. S. (1992). Toward a brain map of auditory hallucinations. American Journal of Psychiatry 149, 1062–1069.Google Scholar
Cutting, J. (1990). The Right Cerebral Hemisphere and Psychiatric Disorders. Oxford University Press: Oxford.Google Scholar
David, A. (1990). Insight and psychosis. British Journal of Psychiatry 156, 798–808.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
David, A. S. (1993). Cognitive neuropsychiatry? Psychological Medicine 23, 1–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
David, A. S. (1994). The neuropsychology of auditory–verbal hallucinations. In The Neuropsychology of Schizophrenia (ed. David, A. and Cutting, J.), pp. 269–312. Lawrence Erlbaum Assocs: Hove, East Sussex.Google ScholarPubMed
David, A. S. & Appleby, L. (1992). Diagnostic criteria in schizophrenia: accentuate the positive. Schizophrenia Bulletin 18, 551–557.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
David, A. S. & Lucas, P. (1993). Auditory–verbal hallucinations and the phonological loop: a cognitive neuropsychological study. British Journal of Clinical Psychology 32, 431–441.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
David, A., Buchanan, A., Reed, A. & Almeida, O. (1992). The assessment of insight in psychosis. British Journal of Psychiatry 161, 599–602.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dittmann, J. & Schuttler, D. (1990). Disease consciousness and coping strategies of patients with schizophrenic psychosis. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 82, 318–322.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Falloon, I. R. & Talbot, R. E. (1981). Persistent auditory hallucinations: coping mechanisms and implications for management. Psychological Medicine 11, 329–339.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Freud, S. (1912). Totem and Taboo. In the Standard Edition, vol. 13 (ed. Strachey, J.). Hogarth Press: London.Google Scholar
Freud, S. (1923). The Ego and the Id. In the Standard Edition, vol. 19 (ed. Strachey, J.). Hogarth Press: London.Google Scholar
Friedhoff, A. J. & Chase, T. N. (1982). Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome. Advances in Neurology, vol. 35. Raven Press: New York.Google Scholar
Frith, C. D. (1987). The positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia reflect impairments in the perception and initiation of action. Psychological Medicine 17, 631–648.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goodwin, D. (1971). Clinical significance of hallucinations in psychiatric disorders. Archives of General Psychiatry 24, 76–80.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hare, E. (1973). A short note on pseudo-hallucinations. British Journal of Psychiatry 122, 469–476.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Havens, L. (1962). The placement and movement of hallucinations in space: phenomenology and theory. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 43, 426–435.Google ScholarPubMed
Heilbrun, A. B. & Blum, N. A. (1980). Impaired recognition of self-expressed thoughts in patients with auditory hallucinations. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 89, 728–736.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hoffman, R. (1986). Verbal hallucinations and language production processes in schizophrenia. Behavioural and Brain Sciences 9, 503–548.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoffman, R. E. & Dobscha, S. K. (1989). Cortical pruning and development of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Bulletin 15, 470–490.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hoffman, R. E. & Satel, S. L. (1993). Language therapy for schizophrenic patients with persistent ‘voices’. British Journal of Psychiatry 162, 755–758.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hustig, H. & Häfner, R. (1990). Persistent auditory hallucinations and their relationship to delusions and mood. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 178, 264–267.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jaspers, K. (1963). General Psychopathology. Manchester University Press: Manchester.Google Scholar
Junginger, J. & Frame, C. L. (1985). Self-report of the frequency and phenomenology of verbal hallucinations. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 173, 149–155.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Keshavan, M. S., David, A. S., Steingard, S. & Lishman, W. A. (1992). Musical hallucinations: a review and synthesis. Neuropsychiatry, Neuropsychology and Behavioral Neurology 3, 211–223.Google Scholar
Kohlberg, L., Yaeger, J. & Hjertholm, E. (1968). Private speech: four studies and a review of theories. Child Development 39, 691–736.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kräupl-Taylor, F. (1981). On pseudo-hallucinations. Psychological Medicine 11, 265–279.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larkin, A. (1979). The form and content of schizophrenic hallucinations. American Journal of Psychiatry 136, 940–943.Google ScholarPubMed
Leuder, I., Thomas, P. & Johnson, P. (1992). Self-repair in dialogue of schizophrenics: effects of verbal hallucinations and negative symptoms. Brain and Language 43, 487–511.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowe, G. R. (1973). The phenomenology of hallucinations as an aid to differential diagnosis. British Journal of Psychiatry 123, 621–633.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McGuire, P. K., Shah, G. M. S. & Murray, R. M. (1993). Increased blood flow in Broca's area during auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia. Lancet 342, 703–706.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Margo, A., Hemsley, D. & Slade, P. (1981). The effects of varying auditory input on schizophrenic hallucinations. British Journal of Psychiatry 139, 122–127.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mellor, C. (1982). The present status of the first rank symptoms. British Journal of Psychiatry 140, 423–424.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, L., O'Connor, R. & DiPasquale, B. (1993). Patient's attitudes towards hallucinations. American Journal of Psychiatry 150, 584–588.Google Scholar
Mitchell, J. & Vierkant, A. (1988). Delusions and hallucinations as a reflection of the subcultural milieu among psychotic patients of the 1930s and 1980s. Journal of Psychology 123, 269–274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Modell, A. (1960). An approach to the nature of auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry 3, 259–265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mott, R., Small, I. & Anderson, J. (1965). Comparative study of hallucinations. Archives of General Psychiatry 12, 595–601.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Paulesu, E., Frith, C. & Frackowiack, R. (1993). Functional anatomy of the articulatory loop. Nature 362, 342–344.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Penfield, W. & Perot, P. (1963). The brain's record of auditory and visual experience. Brain 86, 568–693.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Romme, M. A. & Escher, M. A. (1989). Hearing voices. Schizophrenia Bulletin 15, 209–215.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Romme, M. A., Honig, E., Northhoorn, E. & Escher, M. A. (1992). Coping with hearing voices: an emancipatory approach. British Journal of Psychiatry 161, 99–103.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schneider, K. (1959). Clinical Psychopathology. Grune and Stratton: New York.Google Scholar
Sedman, G. (1966). Inner voices: phenomenological and clinical aspects. British Journal of Psychiatry 112, 485–490.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sinason, M. (1993). Who is the mad voice inside? Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy 7, 207–221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slade, P. & Bentall, R. (1988). Sensory Deception: A Scientific Analysis of Hallucination. Croom Helm: London.Google Scholar
Starker, S. & Jolin, A. (1982). Imagery and hallucinations in schizophrenic patients. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 170, 448–450.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tarrier, N., Beckett, R., Harwood, S., Baker, A., Yusupoff, L. & Ugaterburu, I. (1993). A trial of two cognitive–behavioural methods of treating residual psychotic symptoms in schizophrenic patients. British Journal of Psychiatry 162, 524–532.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Taylor, P. & Fleminger, J. (1981). The lateralisation of symptoms in schizophrenia. British Journal of Medical Psychology 54, 59–65.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tien, A. (1991). Distributions of hallucinations in the population. Journal of Social and Psychiatric Epidemiology 26, 287–292.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Toone, B., Cooke, E. & Lader, M. (1981). Electrodermal activity in the affective disorders and schizophrenia. Psychological Medicine 8, 1–32.Google Scholar
Wing, J. K., Cooper, J. E. & Sartorius, N. (1974). Measurement and Classification of Psychiatric Symptoms. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.Google Scholar
World Health Organization. (1992). Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry (SCAN). WHO: Geneva.Google Scholar
Zigler, E. & Philips, L. (1961). Psychiatric diagnosis and symptomatology. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 63, 69–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar