In addition to the change in social contacts and manipulating
the levels of sensory stimulation, developing a meaning
of the voices was another significant means to cope with
voice hearing. Apart from reducing ambiguities, developing a
meaning of the voices would reduce likelihood of error in the
attribution of the source of one’s perceptions. Thus, listening
to music with a meaningful pattern of sounds, preferably at a
high volume, would help to reduce hallucinatory activity and
the feeling of powerlessness of patients [29, 30].
Perhaps the most important foundation of these coping
strategies is based on the conceptualization of the individuals
as active goal-directed agents who can influence the course
of their voice-hearing problem. Thus, in focusing our view
on the strength rather than on the problem and its symptomatology
of the individuals, this study attempts to get a
more complete picture of the course and coping strategies of
voice-hearing problems of Chinese people in Hong Kong.