Imagine when a voice in your head regularly threatens to harm you or your loved ones, or even orders you to do it yourself. That would be awful!
These auditory hallucinations are one of the most common symptoms of schizophrenia, with about one in four suffering from it, continuing to experience them even on antipsychotic medications.
Fortunately, scientists recently helped schizophrenics gain control of their condition by turning these voices into interactive avatars. In a study conducted at University College London, 16 schizophrenic subjects worked with a therapist to select the computerized face and voice that they believed most closely matched the evil "entity" that spoke to them. The therapist could talk to the patient in real time through this avatar, his animated lip movements matched his speech.
Over the course of seven 30-minute sessions, each subject (person) interacts with their avatar, having the ability to counter threats and orders. This not only allowed subjects to become comfortable with the idea of confronting "real" entities on their own, but due to their participation in the creation of avatars, it helped them understand that entities actually arose within their own mind.
In addition, each subject received MP3 recordings of their sessions, which they can listen to whenever they start hearing voices again. Once all sessions were over, nearly all participants reported a decrease in both the frequency and severity of their hallucinations. Three people who had hallucinations for 16, 13 and 3.5 years stopped hearing voices completely.
The research team received an award of £ 1.3 million ($ 1,980,000) from the UK's Wellcome Trust for a larger therapeutic trial. The trial will include 142 test subjects and is slated to begin in July at King's College London. The first results are expected by the end of 2015.
Avatar Therapy was developed by Julian Leff, Distinguished Professor of Mental Health Sciences at University College London.