Self-Compassion and Hearing Voices
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The Contribution of Self-Compassion to our Current Understanding of Voice Hearing
IRAS ID
289071
Contact name
Craig Steel
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 31 days
Research summary
Hearing voices that other people cannot is an experience shared by 13.2% of the general population. Whilst hearing voices is not distressing for everybody, many people come to mental health services to seek help to manage this experience. The therapy that is most widely offered for hearing voices is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Psychosis (CBTp). However, this approach has been criticised for relatively low rates of effectiveness in treatment.
There is a growing interest in Compassion Focused Therapy, which is an alternative approach to treatment of hearing voices. This model suggests that increasing somebody’s self-compassion can help them to manage their voices and reduce their distress.
This research aims to explore whether there is a relationship between self-compassion and voice hearing, and whether it offers any additional understanding of hearing voices than the CBTp approach.REC name
London - Bromley Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/LO/0587
Date of REC Opinion
15 Oct 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion