Don't do it without supervision, I nearly jumped 100m because the voices in my head convinced me I'm a Star Trek captain and will be transported to my bridge mid-jump.<p>Never do anything to confirm a paranoid person's psychosis unless you have total control of the situation and a psychiatrist supervision. Never try to peace them by saying unrealistic things, you never know what's going on in their head that you just confirmed. My GF tried to reassure me by saying she will be with me in 15 minutes, but she was 100km away and I thought "okay well that makes all of this real, let's do it".
I've been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder when I was in my early twenties.<p>I've had several full blown psychotic episodes and been hospitalised several times.<p>Fortunately there was one medication - Amisulpride - that kept me stable enough to be able to have a professional career, though not without a lot of struggling and sacrifice.<p>I know what psychosis is and honestly, this avatar therapy feels a bit like bullshit to me.<p>When in psychosis, you are not listening to your voices - you are your voices and they can command you to do things you do not want to do. You are not in control of you consciousness.<p>There is hope though. A revolution in mental illnessis going on - check the metabolic mind site for more info - <a href="https://metabolicmind.org" rel="nofollow">https://metabolicmind.org</a><p>I talk about my experience in my blog - <a href="https://www.feelingbuggy.com/p/finding-hope-after-decades-of-struggle" rel="nofollow">https://www.feelingbuggy.com/p/finding-hope-after-decades-of...</a><p>Many other people have substantially improved because of metabolic therapy and there are dozens of random control trials going on with very promising early results.<p>There are ever more cases of successful treatment via metabolic therapy<p>Under the risk of being unpopular, it's my responsibility to let people know about this treatment option and bring hope to those who suffer from this terrible illness.
One of my favorite speculative hypotheses is Bicameral Mind Theory, which asserts that something like schizophrenia was relatively common until relatively recently, about 3000 BC. It argues that it was relatively normal for humans to hear voices in their head directing them. So when we read religious texts about the gods commanding so-and-so to do such-and-such, it wasn't just a spiritual metaphor, but an actual voice people heard in their heads and interpreted as higher powers.
Interestingly this idea of helping people to talk to the voices in their head is not new. The basis for IFS therapy (which emerged in the 80s) actively teaches people to have dialogue with their inner "parts". It is becoming one of the gold-standard therapies for CPTSD, anxiety, and a range of other trauma related conditions.<p>The core discovery of the therapy is that the human mind has an inherent multiplicity. Once you accept that and go from there, the rest of the technique emerges naturally. It's really quite amazing. I highly recommend the book "No bad parts" by Dr Richard Schwartz, the discoverer of the technique.<p>What really excites me here is the use of a virtual avatar that personifies the voice. That is really new to me and I can see all sorts of possibilities to link with IFS.
>As much as 8 percent of the population reports experiencing auditory hallucinations on a regular basis (13 percent hear them at least occasionally), compared to just 1 percent who are diagnosed with schizophrenia. <a href="https://medicine.yale.edu/news/yale-medicine-magazine/article/when-researchers-listen-to-people-who-hear-voices/" rel="nofollow">https://medicine.yale.edu/news/yale-medicine-magazine/articl...</a><p>Hearing voices may be a symptom of something serious, but not always. As long as a person's grasp of reality is not in danger and voices don't stress out people, they can live with them and not even seek help. Not all people hear negative voices. Older lonely people have been known to say that voices keep them company.<p>> voice-hearing experiences of people with serious psychotic disorders are shaped by local culture – in the U.S., the voices are harsh and threatening; in Africa and India, they are more benign and playful. <a href="https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2014/07/voices-culture-luhrmann-071614" rel="nofollow">https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2014/07/voices-culture-luh...</a><p>Maybe the most famous case of a high-functioning outlier was Carl Jung. He hallucinated complete persons since childhood ,visually and everything. He discussed matters with them. In the end, he was able to get rid of them when he decided that they were not helpful anymore. It's easier to understand his weird theories and spirituality when you have read his autobiography. The guy was off the charts but not disabled by it.
Fantastic piece of writing.<p>Looks like a really promising approach to therapy as well.. right up until they said they'd stop voicing it by a skilled psychologist and get an AI to do it, while putting the psychotic person into VR instead of over a screen.. that was a big 'fuck no'.
This reminds me of mirror box therapy for phantom limb syndrome. Amputees sometimes feel intense pain in the limbs that they have lost. This is measurable activity in the brain. Unfortunately all of the feedback mechanisms for that activity have been removed with the limb. By showing people a mirrored version of their remaining limb. And then stimulating that limb in a way that would remove pain say massage or touch or unclenching a cramped clenched phantom hand, the patient gets the feedback to the part of their brain via their visual system that there's nothing wrong with that limb. This activates inhibitory circuits that would otherwise be inaccessible.<p>In this therapy a combination of visual and audio input as well as external control over the behavior of the Voice allows for a feedback mechanism which does not exist otherwise.
This concept has been explored in the "The Outer Limits (1995)" episode 5 of season 2: "Mind Over Matter"<p>"A doctor uses a virtual reality A.I. device that gives him direct access inside the human mind to enter the mind of a colleague he deeply cares about and help her after she's hit by a car and slips into a coma. Things go horribly wrong."<p><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0667922/" rel="nofollow">https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0667922/</a>
Kind of relevant to this, there is literature to support the notion that the 'personality' of internal voices is shaped by society -- people experiencing it in Western nations tend to have voices be very negative and violent, whereas people of other nations tend to have more friendly relationships with their auditory hallucinations. It definitely fits with this therapy, where building a relationship with the voice tends to benefit the mental health of the person [1].<p>[1] <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24970772/" rel="nofollow">https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24970772/</a>
I could have told you that voicing deamons in your head gets rid of them 20 years ago.
A bunch of my friends know this trick too.<p>I have successfully used this in therapy, i.e. helping friends on many, many occasions.<p>Strange that this is news in the psychiatric world: we "discovered" it by caring, and listening, and trying stuff out.<p>If psychiatric community is not listening to patients and conversing with them and their demons, and trying pills as a solution while knowing this doesn't work, it should be considered malpractice.<p>No wonder everyone hates psychiatrists.<p>Calling themselves doctors and the humans in front of them patients, is probably the root cause.
This trial has its own website too.<p><a href="https://www.avatartherapytrial.com/what-is-avatar-therapy" rel="nofollow">https://www.avatartherapytrial.com/what-is-avatar-therapy</a>
I’m glad this sort of treatment is getting more exploration and research. While I’ve never heard voices myself, childhood trauma did teach me to anthropomorphize my thoughts so I could discuss things more casually, instead of clinically; I felt more at ease verbally sparring with myself in isolation instead of cooping big, complex thoughts inside my head or onto paper. I chalked it up as a quirk until a therapist recently told me that sort of coping mechanism was quite healthy and “advanced, something it can take patients years to develop with guidance” - so I keep doing it.<p>Avatar therapy could have implications far beyond psychosis, I think. My “round tables” have helped me begin piecing together why certain behaviors follow seemingly unrelated events (e.g., why going for a walk often ends with my coming home with candy), and untangle the automatic decision-making processes of my own brain. It’s also helped me identify what I actually desire in my own life, as opposed to what I’m sold on during “autopilot”. Said revelations have steered me back towards therapy yet again, seeking professional guidance on my own observations, which I think is the best possible outcome for mental health quandaries.<p>All of which is to say, I hope to see more human to human research on this topic. The end part, where they want to place AI in command of the voices so it can scale, seems incredibly risky for all but the most “mainstream” of cases, and far too risky for those struggling with literal psychosis; then again, I’m not a Doctor, so I could be very wrong in my concerns. Guess we’ll see when the study wraps.
I've never fully understood this voice in the 'ed thing. Does anyone with internal dialogue have schizophrenia? Or is this literal, auditory voice, indistinguishable from actual voice?<p>Also, there's old technology in the wild capable of doing this[1] and I'd not be surprised to see it eventually become more easily available as hardware decreases in cost. It's already on the 'table' for advertisment purposes, albeit not microwave based.<p>1. <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect</a><p>Edit, Various Links:<p><a href="https://gizmodo.com/we-will-beam-advertisements-directly-into-your-brain-390600" rel="nofollow">https://gizmodo.com/we-will-beam-advertisements-directly-int...</a><p><a href="https://www.holosonics.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.holosonics.com/</a><p><a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/futuristic-device-from-israeli-firm-puts-music-in-your-head-without-headphones/" rel="nofollow">https://www.timesofisrael.com/futuristic-device-from-israeli...</a><p><a href="https://phys.org/news/2008-02-pentagon-lasers-voices.html" rel="nofollow">https://phys.org/news/2008-02-pentagon-lasers-voices.html</a><p><a href="https://www.wired.com/2007/06/darpas-sonic-pr/" rel="nofollow">https://www.wired.com/2007/06/darpas-sonic-pr/</a><p><a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/laser-beam-speech-mit" rel="nofollow">https://futurism.com/the-byte/laser-beam-speech-mit</a>
The Atlantic reported on similar research in 2014. The article from The Atlantic is titled "Learning to Live with the Voices in Your Head" [0]. Here's a choice quote from that article:<p>>“The problem,” [Intervoice founder Dr. Marius Romme] writes, “is not hearing voices, but the inability to cope with the experience.” In 1987, after two decades of clinical work, the Dutch psychiatrist began promoting a drug-free therapy in which patients were encouraged to accept and analyze their voices.<p>The article linked in this post has a similar sentiment from one of the patients:<p>>She hadn’t expected them to go. “My aim wasn’t to get rid of them – just to get along with them,” she told me. “I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to let go. I’d never really been on my own. As abusive as it was, it’s still a relationship.”<p>Hopefully the therapy takes off, and we don't keep re-discovering this every 10 years.<p>[0]<a href="https://archive.is/pfKrC#selection-1413.89-1413.360" rel="nofollow">https://archive.is/pfKrC#selection-1413.89-1413.360</a>
This is fascinating. What I note is that the therapist is collaborating with the patient to create "theatre". I think they should lean into this, new therapists should be explicitly trained in performance and theatre facilitation. There are a lot of solved problems with which they may otherwise struggle.
I know a few people that tell me they experience "voices", but not necessarily hostile ones. The common mechanism they use to organize their thoughts is to assign a name to the voice (or multiple voices) and possibly an appearance to it. I believe it's referred to as a plural system? I honestly don't know what to make of any of it since it's so unlike anything I've personally experienced. They seem to not be self-destructive, though, so whatever they're doing must be effective for themselves. I can't imagine that the mechanism behind it is too different than the one responsible for psychosis, so it makes sense that a similar approach would be effective.
>Trial participants would create an avatar of their voice: a moving, three-dimensional digital embodiment that looks and sounds like the persecutor inside their heads<p>Shoulda just made a Jackie Chan tulpa instead
I've read that the voices that people with schizophrenia hear can vary depending on their cultural background (people from US hearing violent/confrontational voices, people from India hearing more playful voices / helpful voices). This case talks about affirming for those with violent voices. Wonder how that is with someone who hears pleasant voices.
The multiplicity of the mind is a subset property of the universe; the human mind is the ability of the universe to ask ‘why something, not nothing’.<p>It took billions of years for the seeds of the mind to flourish, and prayer is a slow reconciling with this property of the universe.
> if you ask voice-hearers to elaborate, you might engage in ‘collusion’: you may make [the voices] more real for people.<p>Validation therapy does exactly this, although I think the people are usually dealing with dementia, not schizophrenia.
Hallucinogenic mushrooms. When trip (it's been a while) I invariably hear voices and have conversations with them.<p>I call them "spirits".<p>They're friendly. Offer advice and such.
We all have personalized profiles with little daemon AIs actually tracking and persecuting us. Torturing our every waking moment with judgmental advertising.<p>No wonder, then, if we are all depressed or terrified or generally mentally ill.<p>It’s directly caused by the lack of privacy controls and harm done by being online.
Reading this article makes me wonder. Whenever I am too stressed, I become very self-conscious and I interpret everyday things and normal nuisances under the umbrella of "See, this is how big of a failure you are, you pathetic loser". Is almost as if there's another voice - not my voice - in my head who tells me this abusive stuff, sitting on the side and being judgemental.<p>Does this also count as psychosis?
The whole schizophrenic spectrum is a reversion to survival mode. This is what a animal hears all day- "They are out to get me, its one huge conspiracy" is the thought process of a mouse. Its low energy by default, as it does not require complex thought processes, relative little communication, very little planning for the future. Its a adaption to a warzone and economic stressors shake it loose.