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Voice-hearing and personification: Characterizing social qualities of auditory verbal hallucinations in early psychosis

Alderson-Day, Ben; Woods, Angela; Moseley, Peter; Common, Stephanie; Deamer, Felicity; Dodgson, Guy; Fernyhough, Charles

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Authors

Ben Alderson-Day

Angela Woods

Peter Moseley

Stephanie Common

Guy Dodgson

Charles Fernyhough



Abstract

Recent therapeutic approaches to auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) exploit the person-like qualities of voices. Little is known, however, about how, why, and when AVH become personified. We aimed to investigate personification in individuals' early voice-hearing experiences. We invited Early Intervention in Psychosis (EIP) service users aged 16-65 to participate in a semistructured interview on AVH phenomenology. Forty voice-hearers (M = 114.13 days in EIP) were recruited through 2 National Health Service trusts in northern England. We used content and thematic analysis to code the interviews and then statistically examined key associations with personification. Some participants had heard voices intermittently for multiple years prior to clinical involvement (M = 74.38 months), although distressing voice onset was typically more recent (median = 12 months). Participants reported a range of negative emotions (predominantly fear, 60%, 24/40, and anxiety, 62.5%, 26/40), visual hallucinations (75%, 30/40), bodily states (65%, 25/40), and "felt presences" (52.5%, 21/40) in relation to voices. Complex personification, reported by a sizeable minority (16/40, 40%), was associated with experiencing voices as conversational (odds ratio [OR] = 2.56) and companionable (OR = 3.19) but not as commanding or trauma-related. Neither age of AVH onset nor time since onset related to personification. Our findings highlight significant personification of AVH even at first clinical presentation. Personified voices appear to be distinguished less by their intrinsic properties, commanding qualities, or connection with trauma than by their affordances for conversation and companionship.

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jul 10, 2020
Online Publication Date Jul 16, 2020
Publication Date Jan 23, 2021
Deposit Date Sep 21, 2021
Publicly Available Date Sep 22, 2021
Journal Schizophrenia Bulletin
Print ISSN 0586-7614
Electronic ISSN 1745-1701
Publisher Oxford University Press (OUP)
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 47
Issue 1
Pages 228-236
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbaa095
Keywords Psychiatry and Mental health
Public URL https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/7816013

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