

Patients who have not had a history of mental health issues and hear music, voices or tinnitus would benefit from an assessment with an audiologist and assistance through counselling and sound therapy programmes. Q: Are there remedies for auditory hallucinations?Ī: Patients with a history of mental health issues should be referred to a psychiatrist or psychologist to assist them. In more severe cases, people describe music, voices or entire conversations. They may also describe humming, buzzing or ringing. People who experience tinnitus often describe a cricket-like or Christmas beetle-like sounds. Q: What do auditory hallucinations sound like?Ī: Auditory hallucinations have been described in many different ways. Therefore, people with hearing changes may experience this form of auditory hallucination. Tinnitus (or ringing/buzzing in the ears) is the simplest auditory hallucination and is associated with changes in hearing which in turn affects brain activity. Read: Are the mentally ill a danger to society?
#AUDITORY HALLUCINATION PROFESSIONAL#
If there is no evidence of a psychiatric illness, but there are signs of depression, anxiety or unrealistic thoughts and actions, then these should be discussed with the patient and further referral to a mental health professional should be made. Q: Are there people who are predisposed to auditory hallucinations, and if so, who are they?Ī: In its more complex form, auditory hallucinations are often associated with schizophrenia and/or other forms of mental illness.

They are generally attributed to “central brain dysfunction” or “abnormal brain activity”. Auditory hallucinations should be considered as part of a complex condition and may arise due to a number of different causes. Q: What are the causes of auditory hallucinations?Ī: Auditory hallucinations (also called phantom auditory phenomena) are defined as “auditory perceptions in the absence of external stimulation”. Health24 asked Durban speech therapist and audiologist Heidi Allan a number of questions about auditory hallucinations: He believed that another composer, Franz Schubert, was dictating music to him. Over time the voices are likely to get more distinct and clearer. Clients whose auditory hallucinations went on to become distinct voices have told me that in the early stages this was more like whispering or several people talking at once. Robert Schumann heard “angelic choirs” and composed music based on his auditory hallucinations. Mumbling, whispers, or indistinct conversations or laughter. When she was seventeen, these voices guided her to liberate France from the English. Joan of Arc, at the age of thirteen started hearing the voices of Saint Michael the Archangel, Saint Catherine of Alexandria and Saint Margaret. Two examples of historical figures who reportedly heard voices that weren’t there, were Joan of Arc and the composer Robert Schumann:
