Psychological Processes involved in voice-hearing
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Testing the Cognitive Attachment Model of Voice-Hearing: The role of source-monitoring, disorganised attachment and dissociation in voice-hearing.
IRAS ID
196897
Contact name
Samantha Bull
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 8 months, 1 days
Research summary
People who hear voices that nobody else can hear have sometimes said that they had difficult experiences in childhood, such as their caregiver acting in insensitive or in unpredictable ways. Children in these situations can find it difficult to find a strategy to feel safe and this is experienced as traumatic for some people.
People who have these experiences as children may cope by feeling disconnected from their body and surroundings, which is known as dissociation. Some adults who used to dissociate as children may continue to dissociate when they are under stress later in life. These adults might be more likely to hear voices.
People who hear voices might also struggle to tell the difference between external sounds and their own thoughts. This is known as a source-monitoring deficit. It is possible that people who struggle with this and also experience dissociation may be more likely to hear voices.
The Cognitive Attachment model of Voice-Hearing (Berry & Bucci, 2015) highlights the important role of early relationships, dissociation and source-monitoring in the development of voice-hearing. This study aims to test aspects of this model.
We want to find out whether people who struggled to find a strategy to feel safe as children are more likely to dissociate as adults. We then want to explore whether this makes it more likely they will hear voices. This study is also going to see if difficulties identifying your own thoughts are involved in the link between dissociation and voice-hearing.
People with a diagnosis of psychosis will be asked to complete questionnaires and a source monitoring task. It should take between two to two and a half hours including breaks to complete the measures.
This will provide valuable information about the link between difficult experiences in childhood, dissociation, source-monitoring and voice-hearing.
REC name
North West - Greater Manchester South Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/NW/0398
Date of REC Opinion
23 Jun 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion