The International Consortium for Hallucinations
Research (ICHR) was set up to promote international collaborations
on key areas of research related to auditory
hallucinations.1,2
This article reports on the findings of a
working group reviewing psychological therapies for hallucinations
to identify key directions in future research.
Psychological therapies are widely recommended in clinical
practice guidelines as part of the treatment for people
who experience psychotic phenomena, particularly
for those with medication-refractory psychotic experiences.3,4
While previous reviews have considered psychological
therapies for psychosis broadly, including recent
reviews of practice,5
outcomes,6,7
new developments,8
and
implementation issues,9
no recent reviews have focused on
therapies for hallucinations. Yet, hallucinations, particularly
in the form of hearing voices, are a frequent source
of distress and interference with functioning, resulting in
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Psychological Therapies for Auditory Hallucinations
them being a major target of psychological therapies for
psychosis. This article considers issues specific to psychological
interventions for hallucinations, with a focus on
the phenomenon of hearing voices: hallucinatory experiences
involving hearing speech, often with the impression
of this being generated by another identity.10 Although a
broad spectrum of hallucinatory phenomena arise across
a range of populations (including nonclinical), we have
focused on hearing voices because, as well as this being
the most frequent hallucinatory phenomenon encountered
in psychotic disorders, voices have been the usual
focus of therapies for hallucinations described in the literature
to date. This review considers current approaches
to research on therapies for voices, limitations in existing
research in informing the outcomes of therapy and specific
therapy processes, and sets out priorities for ongoing
research in this area.