Psychological Interventions for Working with Trauma and Distressing Voices: The Future Is in the Past

Frontiers in Psychology

Craig Steel¹ 

关键词: voices;    posttraumatic stress disorder;    schizophrenia;    dialogue;    cognitive therapy;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2016.02035

学科分类：心理学（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

The relationship between stressful or traumatic life events and the content of experiences associated with a diagnosis of schizophrenia is clinically intriguing but lacks developed theoretical understanding. The high prevalence of traumatic events in this group indicates the need to develop psychosocial interventions. However, antipsychotic medication remains the frontline treatment within most mental health services, frequently prescribed by a doctor implicitly (or explicitly) imposing a simplistic disease model, along with the associated lack of hope for those who do not respond well. The essence of this model being that the distressing experiences associated with the diagnosis, typically paranoia and/or hearing voices, are abnormal and symptoms of a disease. Staying within a diagnostic approach, it is worth noting that recent studies suggest that ~15% of people diagnosed with schizophrenia will also present with experiences consistent with a diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; Achim et al., 2011). To date the clinical trials aimed at treating PTSD within this group suggest that exposure and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) are effective (Van den Berg et al., 2015) whilst cognitive restructuring alone may not be (Steel et al., 2017). It is likely that psychological interventions for this group will evolve alongside developments in evidence-based interventions for PTSD.

【 授权许可】

CC BY