Zen Dharma Schizophrenia Mental Health Recovery, Hearing Voices Coping

Hearing voices is a common phenomenon.

Aaron Beck MD cites research that 5% of the population hears voices but it only interfers with the daily lives of 1% hearing them.

It is thus inadvisable to suggest that “hearing voices” alone is a symptom of an “illness.”

Schizophrenia mental health recovery depends on coping or transforming this phenomenon only if it is interfering with daily life.

For those of us who have been or are bothered by “hearing voices” enough to interfere with daily life there are many ways to deal with them. In a series of blogs we will discuss several. Here we shall discuss a basic technique for schizophrenia mental health recovery. Later more.

“Voices” “heard” are thoughts.

As a Zen Buddhist once said to me, “Whether they are your thoughts or someone else’s thoughts, they are just thoughts.” Realizing this helps one maintain balance in the face of our own mind. Such balance is the basis of schizophrenia mental health recovery.

Another Zen saying,”Just because a voice is disembodied does NOT mean it is wise.” Treating “voices” like any other set of thoughts may be difficult but will help schizophrenia mental health recovery.

Something which may assist perceiving “voices” as just thoughts if you are bothered by them is a point made by Aaron Beck MD. Aaron Beck points out that “hot thoughts” transform into “voices”. “Hot thoughts” in “cognitive behavioral therapy” are emotionally loaded thoughts. When emotionally loaded thoughts present themselves forcefully and appear “real”. Realizing this again helps me gain balance and experience “voices” as just thoughts and assists with schizophrenia mental health recovery.

“Voices” are generally NOT commands, often called command hallucinations. This notion of commands is a very misleading stereotype on the media. The media is also very misleading about schizophrenia mental health recovery. On this see, What Is Actual Schizophrenia Recovery Rate Even when on the rare occasions that “voices” command something most of the time the commands are not followed by those hearing them. Chadwick and Berchwood point out “Without fail, voices believed to be malevolent provoked fear and were resisted…” The Omnipotence of Voices I: A Cognitive Approach to Auditory Hallucinations So schizophrenia mental health recovery is not hindered by a phenomenon which is unchangeable. Voices can be successfully coped with. They are not somehow immutable and written in our genes or brains.

The impression that command hallucinations are common comes principly from an overgeneralization of research by Lee who worked with a very small sample (53) skewed to this phenomenon. The work of Marius Romme,PhD cited by Beck shows that voices are rather common and coped with well by many.

Romme is a key researcher on schizophrenia mental health recovery in Europe and his contribution on the phenomenon of “voices” is key.

Romme says “The form and the content of chronic auditory hallucinations … compared in three cohorts, namely patients with schizophrenia, patients with a dissociative disorder, and nonpatient voice-hearers was not significantly different between the three groups. The subjects in the nonpatient group, unlike those in the patient groups, perceived their voices as predominantly positive: they were not alarmed or upset by their voices and felt in control of the experience. In most patients, the onset of auditory hallucinations was preceded by either a traumatic event or an event that activated the memory of earlier trauma.” In other blogs we shall deal further with this material. Romme found a rich range of “voices” not just command hallucinations. Auditory Hallucinations: A comparison of patients and non-patients. Romme’s work is cited as well as many other research papers on “voices” at Intervoiceonline.org see also for peer mutual support Beck and the data he presents help as he says normalize the hearing of ‘voices’ which Beck sees as a key element in schizophrenia mental health recovery.

“Hot thoughts” are at times so laden with emotion that they are heard as a voice outside one’s self, as if “out loud.” Often this seems to happen against background noise and one’s hot thoughts seem to be “read into” this background noise. These things can be learned and do not have to dominate a persons mind. They can recede into the background and schizophrenia mental health recovery happens, happens quite often.

Usually the “hearing of voices” is within one’s mind. “Mind reading” is an example of “voices” within one’s mind. One thinks one can “hear” someone elses thoughts. This is called thought insertion. Or one can think someone else is reading one’s thoughts. This can be terrifying as we think many things we would not like others to know.

Schizophrenia mental health recovery is aided by understanding thoughts as “hot thoughts” expecially in instances like this.

It might be pointed out that there are very famous people who “talk to spirits” or make a living hearing “voices”. People like Sylvia Brown, or James Van Praagh. Millions of people are entertained by this. There are books in stores like Barnes and Nobles and Borders teaching thousands upon thousands of people to channel.

But somehow people limit their perceptions when it comes to those labeled even though research consistently shows those labeled with schizophrenia no more dangerous than anyone else. In the presence of alcohol people with schizophrenia are dangerous but LESS so than someone without a psychiatric label. I will post on this in another blog. This kind of selective perception promoted so by the media is a major block to schizophrenia mental health recovery.

This block is due to the internalization of these kinds of destructive stereotypes as well as the blatant descrimination due to them.

I myself many years ago had a great fear of this “mind reading” phenonemon. It was a feedback loop. Fear brought on voices. Voices drove fear and thus more voices. What relieved me of this fear of others “reading” my mind happened more than 25 years ago. My wife an I were living with a Sufi in New York City who had taken us in off the streets while I looked for a job. He was just entering the kitchen where my wife and I were seated chatting. I was thinking a question. My Sufi friend answered the question. I felt comfortable around him and being a Sufi I knew he would not freak out. So I asked, “I was just thinking that. Did you know I was thinking about the same thing?”

He answered, “No things like that are ‘just in the air.”

So if “just in the air” then no one need read my mind to pick up on thoughts about the same thing. Hence I need not fear another knowing my thoughts. This ended a feedback loop of “mind reading”, embarrassment and fear at someone knowing my thoughts driving more “mind reading” and so on. Schizophrenia mental health recovery seemed much more possible when I realized this.

Once a cognitive underpinning of things like “mind reading” has been challanged then other methods are more viable like interferring with subvocalization. Subvocalization is the slight movement of our throat muscles when we think. Thinking is thus a form of behavior which can be changed.

Zen Dharma Recovery is thus applied to schizophrenia mental health recovery as it is with anxiety, the various forms of mania and depression. One can think non-thinking, the basic Zen Dharma Recovery art.

When “hot thoughts” as voices are powerful enough to interfer with daily life one needs a way to be relieved. “Hot thoughts” as “voices” are like all thoughts subvocalization. One needs to be mindful of the phenonemon. Zen Dharma Recovery is based on this. Once mindful one can do something. Humming a tune will interfer with them, slow them down, since it interferes with subvocalization. For some it brings complete relief. For other a little. For a few none at all.

For optimal effectiveness the cognitice underpinnings of “voices” needs to be challanged as I said earlier. This challanging need not be that the voices are unreal. Rather it can be the sorts of things that the Zen students or the Sufi had told me. If one reads the scientific literature on “voice” hearing one will see that voices are given credibility not just due to thinking them real but due to the “authority” given them. The Zen and Sufi wisdom I have heard over the years challanges the “authority” of the “voices”. Schizophrenia mental health recovery is enhanced when the “authority” of “voices” is undercut. Then a technique like humming is much more effective.

Zen Dharma recovery is mindfulness and letting go of thoughts or thinking non-thinking. It allows freedom and can be a basis of schizophrenia mental health recovery.

Iistening to music is another way to let go. In this method one can more easily pay attention to music instead of the noise of “voices” in one’s head if the voices have less authority. Less authority, less interest, the more easily distraction will work.
It is also easier to directly challange the “voices”, to say “go away” successfully.

Of course as we have discussed in other posts on this page, ujaya breathing can also bring relief when one is not in a social situation where one can hum.

Here is a brief description of ujaya breathing once again. See also Zen Not-Knowing Ujaya Breath Supports Anxiety Recovery and Bipolar Mental Health Recovery Anxiety Mania

Just very slightly close your throat muscles and breath without effort otherwise. A simple way to do this is to silently say “hum” to yourself as you breath in an otherwise unrestricted way. In yoga, full ujaya breath is much more controled. Silently say “hum” instead of counting. Or count silently with the throat slightly constricted or slightly closed.

We had a yoga instructor in our training a while back. She taught ujaya breathing as follows. Imagine a very small soda straw in one’s throat. Close the throat muscles on the soda straw holding it very gently. This of course allows the throat to close a little. Breath will be slightly audible doing this. One can count: one on out breath, two on in breath, three on out breath, four on in breath, five on out breath, six on in breath, seven on out breath, eight on in breath, nine on out breath, ten on in breath. begin again, one on out breath, two on in breath and so on. One can count with a slightly tightened throat instead of saying “hum”. These methods will assist schizophrenia mental health recovery and allow more consistent attention to the tasks of everyday life, to focusing on the task at hand in one’s daily life.

What ever mindfulness or breath method you chose, practice from two minutes to twenty five minutes a day in a comfortable position. Consistency is more important than how long you do it each day. When you need the skill it will be there.
There are many other ways to deal with bothersome “voices” to aid in schizophrenia mental health recovery some of which we shall discuss in other blogs.

So to summarize:
Schizophrenia mental health recovery happens frequently.

Schizophrenia mental health recovery is based on research.

Schizophrenia mental health recovery is aided by understanding the research of Aaron Beck, Marius Romme and others on “voices”.

Schizophrenia mental health recovery can be supported by Zen Dharma Recovery.

Some books of interest.
This first book from The Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation has a chapter by Dr. Courtenay Harding with a summary and analysis of 10 longitudinal outcome studies of schizophrenia demonstrating that it is not a degenerating biological disease but has rather high recovery rates. She trains at the Coalition of Behavioral Health Agencies in New York City.

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Professor Ed