Hearing Voices: Understanding and Treatment

1.5 CPD hours

In this webinar, Dr. Ross will discuss the differential diagnosis and treatment of auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) – hearing voices. Voices are widely regarded as a symptom of psychosis with a primary treatment of antipsychotic medication. The standard differential diagnosis is schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder and psychotic depression. However, research demonstrates that AVH are common in borderline personality disorder (BPD), complex PTSD and dissociative identity disorder (DID). For these disorders, the primary treatment of the voices is psychotherapy. In this approach, the voices are understood not as symptoms of brain disease but as disavowed, disowned – dissociated – aspects of self that can be engaged in psychotherapy. Dr. Ross will discuss the differential diagnosis of psychotic versus dissociative voices and will describe the psychotherapy of dissociative voices.

Learning Objectives:

Participants will be able to:

• Describe the differential diagnosis of psychotic versus dissociative auditory hallucinations.
• Describe the models that guide the treatment of psychotic versus dissociative voices.
• Describe the principles of the psychotherapy of dissociative voices.