How can i get voices in my head

These findings can be added to those from a number of other studies showing that online counseling provides increased access to valuable resources, as it circumvents common barriers to treatment, such as geographical and time constraints, financial burden, and perceived stigma. As discussed above, if you are experiencing certain symptoms that may be arising out of mental health issues, such as voices in your head or auditory hallucinations, online therapy can help.

If you are concerned about privacy, online counseling through BetterHelp is discreet. A qualifiedprofessional can help guide you as you confront uncomfortable feelings and improve your mental health. Read below for reviews of BetterHelp counselors, from those who have sought guidance in the past. Even though it has been 3 weeks, it has helped out. I'm able to tell her things that my paranoid delusions aren't able to use against me.

I guess it is because she is at a distance. Either which way, her tools of coping are massive and highly appreciated. Adding more tools to the chest. In one 30 minute session, I got more accomplished in terms of structuring goals, building coping mechanisms, and recognizing thought patterns, than I had in the 6 months working with the other counselor.

I'm pleased with my progress and am very grateful to Arielle. Hopefully, after reading this article, you have a better understanding of the different reasons why you may be experiencing voices in your head. Even if you feel that they are something more than just an inner voice and that it might be something more serious, help and treatment are available.

You might require medication, but you can live a much quieter life without the voices bothering you as much by keeping them under control. Take the first step today. By: Michael Puskar Updated January 11, Medically Reviewed By: Kay Adkins, LPC Experiencing voices in your head can be quite alarming and scary for most people, and it can leave those affected wondering if something is wrong with them.

Search Topics. The information on this page is not intended to be a substitution for diagnosis, treatment, or informed professional advice. But there is more research taking place. You can read about the study by following the link below. Avatar Therapy UCL webpage : www. They also support people who have visual hallucinations and people who have tactile sensations. It gives information and support through its website and self-help groups across the country.

Intervoice Intervoice are a charity. They encourage people all over the world to share ideas through their online community. You can also find information about hearing voices through their articles and resources. Voices network This is a UK wide, London based project supporting children and young people who experience voices. They also offer advice and support for carers, family members and professionals. Telephone: Email: info voicecollective. Action on Postpartum Psychosis A national charity for women and families affected by postpartum psychosis.

They run a peer support service, provide information, training to health professionals, do research and promote awareness. Donate Search Menu. About us About us. See our contacts page Looking to contact us? Covid support. Supporting yourself Read more Supporting yourself. Covid information hub See all pages Covid information hub.

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Contact our advice service today Need more information? Get involved. Become a campaigner Sign up today Become a campaigner. Get help now. Advice and information About mental illness Learn more about symptoms Hearing Voices. Hearing Voices Hearing voices is a common symptom of a mental illness. If you would like more advice or information you can contact our Advice and Information Service by clicking here. Download Hearing Voices factsheet. Share: Contact us:.

Hearing voices is not always a sign of mental illness. Treatments for hearing voices can include medication, talking therapies and peer support. Need more advice? If you need more advice or information you can contact our Advice and Information Service. Contact us Contact us. There are different types of auditory hallucinations. You may experience the following things.

People talking to you People talking about you Hearing music Hearing animal noises Hearing background noises, like people chatting What is it like to hear voices?

Hearing voices can be different for everyone. Or only say occasional words or phrases, and talk at the same time as other voices. They may talk between themselves, or comment on what you are doing.

Is hearing voices the same as intrusive thoughts? But both can be upsetting and difficult to ignore. Stevie's story. Up to 1 in 10 people hear voices. Hearing voices is not as rare as we used to think. You can find more information about: Spirituality, religion and mental illness by clicking here. Psychosis by clicking here. Schizophrenia by clicking here. Schizoaffective disorder by clicking here. Bipolar disorder by clicking here. Personality disorder by clicking here.

Dissociation and dissociative disorders by clicking here. Depression by clicking here. How do I get help if I am hearing voices? You should be assessed quickly. A secondary mental health team will usually be called the: early intervention team EIT community mental health team CMHT , or crisis team.

You can ask your GP for their details. You can call NHS Use an internet search engine. How can social services help me? For example, you may need support so that you can: get out of the house, keep in touch with friends and family, get a job or take part in education, clean your house, prepare meals or go shopping, keep safe, manage your money, take part in leisure activities, or contribute to society e. What other help is available?

Charities In some areas, charities will support people who hear voices. Self-help There are things that you can do to help manage your mental health. What causes someone to hear voices? Life experiences You may hear voices as a way to cope with difficult experiences. These include: stress, anger or anxiety, drugs and alcohol, homelessness, delirium. This is a state of mental confusion which may follow a serious physical illness or an operation, grief, divorce or separation, tiredness.

Genetics Research does suggest that mental illness can run in families. Research suggests that changes to your brain chemistry can cause you to hear voices. What treatment should the NHS offer me? Medication Antipsychotic medication can help with hearing voices. Talking therapies There are different types of talking therapies recommended for people who hear voices. What is CBT? CBT is a talking treatment. It is there to try and help you to: understand links between your thoughts, feeling and actions, understand your symptoms and how they affect your day to day life, look at your perceptions, beliefs and reasoning.

CBT aims to: help you to be aware of signs that your thoughts, feelings or behaviours are changing, give you a way of coping with your symptoms reduce stress, and improve your functioning.

Family intervention Family intervention is where you and your family work with mental health professionals to help you to manage your relationships. Family intervention can be used to: learn more about your symptoms, improve communication among family members. Family intervention could help you and your family to: learn more about your symptoms, understand what is happening to you, improve communication with each other, know how to support each other, think positively, become more independent, be able to solve problems with each other, know how to manage a crisis, and improve mental wellbeing.

Art therapy You may get art therapy if your voices keep coming back. Art therapy aims to help you to: learn new ways of relating to other people, show how you are feeling, accept your feelings, and understand your feelings.

Therapy for trauma If you have experienced trauma, your voices may be part of your way of dealing with this. You can find more information about: Antipsychotics by clicking here.

Choice and managing problems by clicking here. Talking therapy by clicking here. Fiona's story. Negative voices It can be common to hear negative, critical voices or unkind voices. This can have an impact on your sense of self-worth and motivation. Thought processes Voices can interrupt the thought process and make it difficult to concentrate. Relationships Hearing voices can have a negative effect on relationships.

Therapy has helped some people to build a new rapport with the voices they hear Credit: Olivia Howitt. At the end of the session Nelson comes back into himself and reports that he was aware of everything that went on.

The therapy had positive and lasting effects, with Nelson finding a new rapport with his mental visitors and, crucially, effecting a rapprochement between his distinct voices — and thus parts of his self — which had previously been at war. Another technique that involves externalising the voice bears several parallels with Voice Dialogue, although it emerged from a rather different quarter. The English psychiatrist Julian Leff recently had the idea of setting up a therapeutic situation in which patients who heard voices could interact with them through a computer-based avatar.

Using face-generation software, patients are first asked to create a face that matches the voice they want to work with, and to use voice-synthesis software to construct a voice to go with it.

The therapist, sitting in another room, then speaks to the patient in the voice of the hallucination, with the face of the avatar animated in sync, although at the flick of a switch he can flip back to being the comforting, guiding therapist. Typically this will involve encouraging the patient to stand up to the voice and challenge what it is saying.

A pilot study showed impressive results, with reductions in the frequency of voices and also beliefs in their malevolence and omnipotence. Leff believes that the visualisation of the hallucinatory experience allows patients to gain control over their voices, particularly when they are frightened about how the voice might react if it was confronted or challenged.

Some voice hearers don't agree that their hallucinations are related to the "inner speech" that most of us experience Credit: Olivia Howitt. Jacqui Dillon points out that there is nothing particularly new in this approach.

When I meet her for lunch on a sunny November day at the Barbican Centre in London, she tells me that the Avatar project is thoroughly well meaning but appears to lack theoretical foundations. She is a highly influential figure in the mental health world, travelling frequently to give talks about her own life and experiences and her role in the growing international movement. As our project has developed and she has seen that we are genuinely interested in understanding voice-hearing, we have become friends, although there are still a few things that we disagree about.

Or even wanting to make them go away, in the sense of stopping them altogether. I suspect that some of the antipathy to the inner speech model stems from overlooking the complexity of the phenomenon. The voices in our heads contain multitudes: not just a considerable variety of forms, but also diverse voices in dialogue, representations of remembered events, interactions with visual imagery and other sensory experiences, and so on.

Saying that inner speech cannot explain why voices are meaningful only makes sense if you hold that inner speech is not meaningful. As the research shows, nothing could be further from the truth. Dillon hears more than a hundred different voices, and she is far better placed than I am to say whether the scientific theories bear any relation to the felt experience.

Exactly the same question comes up when we ask about how people relate to traumatic memories. Even when memories are terrible, we seem to want to hang on to them. They are parts of our selves, even if they are aspects that we can only look upon with horror. But therapy can help people cope with them in a more constructive way, reprocessing the events so that they become less intrusive, disruptive and distorted. When I was researching my book on the topic, I talked to a lorry driver, Colin, who had had his horrific and distorted memories of a road traffic accident reshaped by a method called EMDR.

During the worst phase of his post-traumatic stress disorder, he would have given anything to make the memories go away, but now, after therapy, he accepts them as part of himself. I would say the same thing about a couple of highly distressing memories that I myself have. Dillon agrees that the experience of distressing voices is not something that can be best dealt with by banishing them.

If we can reshape our memories into a more palatable form, perhaps voice hearers can also mould their own pieces of remembered experience into a story that is not quite as shattering to their sense of who they are. Typically, no. Auditory hallucinations can also show up as a symptom of some medical and mental health concerns. Schizophrenia and related conditions typically show up in early adulthood.

Other common symptoms include:. Learn more about schizophrenia symptoms and potential treatments. A sleep disorder refers to any condition that regularly prevents you from getting the amount of sleep you need. Your brain and body need sleep to function properly , and regular sleep deprivation can have serious health consequences. Some people hear voices after experiencing a traumatic event. PTSD often causes extreme physical and emotional distress, so it can have a big impact on daily life.

Research also linked lower levels of vitamin D to more severe schizophrenia symptoms. Symptoms of vitamin D or B12 deficiency might include:. Hearing voices that say cruel or unkind things, however, can affect your sense of self-worth and emotional well-being. Hearing voices can be confusing, distracting, or even upsetting — especially if the voices say critical or unkind things or if they make you feel bad about yourself. Recording what the voices say, when you hear them, and how they make you feel can offer more insight into potential causes or triggers of the voices and common themes you notice.

For example, you might only hear them at a specific time of day or when you feel a certain way, like tired or angry. Try talking to someone who has a history of offering non-judgmental support, like a best friend or close sibling. Simply telling someone about your experience can help ease distress, and knowing you have support can help you feel less alone.

In time, this could help the voices go away entirely. Accepting these voices as part of your experience can help you feel less distressed, and, over time, you might notice them less and less. While some people find it most helpful to ignore the voices, talking back could help you accept them and regain some control.