The Association Between Metacognitive Beliefs And Auditory Hallucinations

B. Hallucinations, are perceived through one of the senses and do not correspond to any stimulus in the outside world. Hallucinations are defined as perceptions in a conscious mind.

The cognitive explanation acknowledges the role of biological factors in schizophrenia, suggesting that the basis of the condition is abnormal brain activity producing visual and auditory hallucinations. Further features of the disorder emerge as people try to make sense of the hallucinations.

Auditory hallucination is a fundamental presentation observed in patients suffering from schizophrenia. It is one of the frequently occurring symptoms considered to be disabling in schizophrenia, but despite vast and numerous organized studies undertaken in this area in order to comprehend the pathophysiology of auditory hallucination, little success has been realized, and it remains to be complex in research, understanding, and expressing the knowledge accrued (Kaprinis, 2008.) The auditory processing in schizophrenia seems to be different from that of normal individuals because patients inflicted with this mental illness complain of voices deep inside their heads. The voices are described as coming

According to Freeman (2008, pp. 24–26) delusions are multidimensional. In addition to mentioning the main characteristics of delusions such as being unfounded, firmly held, and resistant to change but also preoccupying and distressing, he also mention that they interfere with the social dimension of a person’s life. The author described the types of delusions as Functional versus organic,( ‘organic’ if it was the result of brain damage and ‘functional’ if it had no known organic cause and was explained primarily via psychodynamic or motivational factors.) ,Monothematic versus polythematic, (polythematic in that they extend to more than one theme, where the themes can be interrelated and ,monothematic where apart from the content of delusion itself, no other (unrelated) bizarre belief needs to be reported by the same person.), Circumscribed versus elaborated, (A delusion is circumscribed if it does not lead to the formation of other

When the brain is deprived of all sensory input it begins to provide input of its own, sometimes relating to events that have occurred before. Sometimes these hallucinations occur with no reasoning whatsoever, all the researchers

28-30). What is most interesting about these examples is that the majority of the hallucinations are experienced by experts within the scientific community. Clearly intentional, the author masterfully crafted a strong appeal to ethics both by presenting himself as an expert and drawing support from reputable

M.’s wife, the college dean, hospital staff and even her roommate were dangerous threats to her mission of saving the world. Janet’s struggle to “save the world” can equate to her hope of being saved herself. These persecutory delusions helped Janet endure her extreme anxiety. Hallucinations, which include hearing voices and seeing things that are not real, are a positive symptom of schizophrenia. Janet experienced auditory hallucinations when she felt thwarted in her delusion that she and Dr. M. must save the world. She was unable to rescue herself from the stress that brought about the delusion formation; this stress and anxiety left her vulnerable to hallucinations. In addition, her paranoia led her to accept the hallucinations as proof of the threats against her plan for world salvation. The command hallucinations Janet heard placed her in danger of performing violent behavior that could harm herself or

About 65% of schizophrenics hallucinate hearing, seeing, or smelling things that are no there. Even though hallucinations are a common symptom of schizophrenia, Susannah’s hallucinations were caused by anti-NMDA-receptor autoimmune encephalitis, so they disappeared once she was treated. One strange hallucination of Susannah’s was that she had wet herself and the nurses were yelling at her. Another was that her father was kidnapping her, although she went with him willingly. Drugs, alcohol, medication, smoking, strokes, or dementia usually causes memory loss.

Researchers went on to discover that an extreme life even or a significant amount of anxiety was a major factor in the emergence of negative auditory hallucinations. While this is true for many sufferers of schizophrenia, Lori did not report any history of abuse or extreme anxiety before her emergence of symptoms. In fact she grew up in a caring and loving environment. The most popular held perspective though is not caused by environment but is rather biological, this theory is called the medical model. The model views mental illness as an issue of brain chemistry rather than caused by childhood trauma or abuse. The model also views the solution as a chemical one, otherwise known as prescription medications (Shorto, 1999). Since Lori experienced very little anxiety and was a happy child and adolescent growing up, her story speaks more the medical model. According to Thomas, Bracken, and Leudar (2004), “Most people who hear voices, whether in schizophrenia or as part of a bereavement reaction, struggle to make sense of the experience” (p. 22). One of Lori’s major turning points to getting better was recognizing she was ill and that the voices were the inner workings of her brain conveying her worsts fears to her.

Hammeke, T.A. McQuillen, M.P. Cohen, B.A. (1983) Musical Hallucinations associated with acquired deafness. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry, 46, 570-572

Hallucinations can be auditory. The types of auditory hallucinations that people experience vary. Some people can hear mean voices one telling them to do something wrong and the other telling them not too. Auditory hallucination can be like a radio talk show so you are hearing the voice, but not an actual participant in what you are hearing. Another auditory hallucination that is very common is hearing music and it can be any kind of music. People that experience these types of hallucinations are normal people like you and me. There are many theories as to why people experience auditory hallucinations such as a greater activation in the primary auditory cortex, or some think it because we can’t recognize the auditory hallucination as our own.

Rosenhan's study was done in two parts. The first part involved the use of healthy associates who briefly simulated auditory hallucinations in an attempt to gain admission to 12 different psychiatric hospitals in five different states in various locations in the United States. All were admitted and diagnosed with psychiatric disorders. After admission, the pseudopatients acted normally and told staff that they felt fine and had not experienced any more hallucinations. All were forced to admit to having a

Hallucinations are a complex form of our eyes playing trick on us because our brain is producing these images. Our eyes are a vital part of helping perceive the world so when they are not working right, our hold on reality may be distorted as shown in the following study. The study was conducted in 1966 at The University of California, Los Angeles by a group of doctors. Four, healthy male individuals were sleep deprived in a controlled environment for one hundred and twenty-two hours. This experiment was conducted to observe the effects of long term sleep deprivation. There were no signs of hallucinations until after the seventy-two-hour mark where the doctors observed “Two walked into a wall because they had hallucinated an open

Another common explanation for MPD is that it is mistakenly diagnosed as Schizophrenia due to a few common symptoms. Although both disorders share auditory hallucinations, Schizophrenics believe the noises are outside of their head and may hear multiple voices or noises at the same time. MPD patients portray only one personality at a time and while each personality may be aware and have feelings about the others they do not conflict or converse with each other.

Multiple regression analysis was run to predict hallucination history from metacognition variables; perception and memory. The model statistically significantly predicted hallucination history, F(2, 177) = 11.88, p < .000, adj. R2 = 10.8%. All variables added statistically significantly to the prediction, p < .05