Imagery-Focused Therapy for Visual Hallucinations: A Case Series

Georgie Paulik; Christopher D J Taylor

doi:10.1002/cpp.2993

Back

Imagery-Focused Therapy for Visual Hallucinations: A Case Series

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Imagery-Focused Therapy for Visual Hallucinations: A Case Series

Georgie Paulik and Christopher D J Taylor

Clinical psychology and psychotherapy, Vol.31(3), e2993

2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/cpp.2993

PMID: 38723656

Appears in Open Access via Read & Publish Agreements

Files and links (1)

pdf

Published812.53 kBDownload View

CC BY V4.0, Open Access

Abstract

Adult

Female

Hallucinations - psychology

Hallucinations - therapy

Humans

Imagery, Psychotherapy - methods

Male

Middle Aged

Psychotic Disorders - complications

Psychotic Disorders - psychology

Psychotic Disorders - therapy

Treatment Outcome

Introduction Visual hallucinations (VH) are more common than previously thought and are linked to higher levels of distress and disability in people with a psychotic illness. Despite this, scant attention has been given to VHs in the clinical literature, and the few therapy case series of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) published to date have not demonstrated reliable change. In other areas of clinical research, problematic mental imagery has been found to be more strongly related to negative affect in psychological disorders than negative linguistic thinking, and imagery focused techniques have commonly been found to improve the outcomes in CBT trials. Given VHs have many similarities with visual mental imagery and many of the distressing beliefs associated with VHs targeted in CBT are maintained by accompanying mental imagery (i.e., imaging a hallucinated figure attacking them), it seems plausible that an imagery-focused approach to treating VHs may be most effective. Methods The current study is a multiple baseline case series (N = 11) of a 10-session imagery-focused therapy for VH in a transdiagnostic sample. Results The study had good attendance and feedback, no adverse events and only one [seemly unrelated] drop-out, suggesting good feasibility, safety and acceptability. The majority of clients reported reduction on both full-scale measures (administered at 3 baselines, midtherapy, posttherapy and 3-month follow-up) and weekly measures of VH severity and distress, ranging from medium to large effect sizes. Conclusions The case series suggests that an imagery-focused approach to treating VHs may be beneficial, with a recommendation for more rigorous clinical trials to follow.

Details

Title: Imagery-Focused Therapy for Visual Hallucinations: A Case Series
Authors/Creators: Georgie Paulik - Murdoch University
Christopher D J Taylor - Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust
Publication Details: Clinical psychology and psychotherapy, Vol.31(3), e2993
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Identifiers: 991005663468207891
Murdoch Affiliation: School of Psychology
Language: English
Resource Type: Journal article

UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This output has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

Metrics

8 File views/ downloads

66 Record Views

6 Times Cited - Web of Science

InCites Highlights

These are selected metrics from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool, related to this output

Collaboration types: Domestic collaboration; International collaboration
Citation topics: 1 Clinical & Life Sciences; 1.21 Psychiatry; 1.21.24 Schizophrenia Research
Web Of Science research areas: Psychology, Clinical
ESI research areas: Psychiatry/Psychology