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Abstract
Background: There is a need for improved psychosocial interventions for distressed voice hearers.
Aims: To evaluate a novel approach to hearing voices: Experience Focused Counselling (EFC) aka Making Sense of Voices.
Study design and methods: Twelve voice hearers were randomly assigned to a 44-week EFC or Treatment As Usual intervention as part of a pilot study design.
Results: At the end of intervention, EFC showed clinically large treatment effect improvements on the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale – Expanded Version psychotic symptoms (Cohen’s d=1.6) and overall psychopathology domains (d=1.3), and the Psychotic Symptom Rating Scales voices (d=1) and delusions (aka non-shared reality) (d=1) scales. EFC voice hearers also felt more able to do first trauma disclosures (n=4) than TAU group voice hearer (n=1).
Discussion: EFC improvements may have been related to the focus on reducing voices-related distress. EFC holds some promise as a safe and effective intervention for voice hearers, with possible improvements in general psychopathology, psychosis, voices and non-shared reality (aka delusions)-related distress. This will need replicating in more powerful studies.
Acknowledgements
No financial support was received and this research was instead based largely on the good will of participating mental health professionals and voice hearers at the St Ansgar gGmbH, Kropp, northern Germany, and at the Pfalzklinikum, Kaiserslautern and Klingenmünster, southwest Germany. Joachim Schnackenberg is a self-funded PhD student at the University of the West of Scotland, and a trainer at the EFC Institut, specialising in the provision of training and supervision in Experience-Focused Counselling. No financial gain was expected.