- Many people who live with schizophrenia
also experience negative auditory voices
which is a part of their hallucinations.
And so in today's video, we're going to be looking
at what exactly these negative voices are.
And also looking at some
of the reasons why they might happen.
(gentle music)
Welcome back to the Living Well Schizophrenia
YouTube channel.
My name is Lauren and I make videos
about what it's like living
with Schizoaffective disorder or schizophrenia.
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Thank you.
All right.
So first off, what exactly do we mean by negative voices?
So negative voices are really any auditory
hallucination that is frightening to a person, distressing,
threatening, includes commands of dangerous natures
or of distressing natures or criticism of a person.
So I personally don't experience negative voices constantly
but when I'm becoming more ill or when
things are going downhill, I do experience a lot more
of the negative voices and negative talk.
And this takes the form typically
in the form of dangerous command hallucinations
or threatening command hallucinations
or criticisms such as,
thing that I'm not good enough or
that I am stupid or incapable in some way
or those kinds of criticisms of me.
So some of the potential consequences
of dealing with these negative voices include,
obviously lower self-esteem.
If somebody is criticizing you in your head all the time
and saying distressing things,
it plays a toll on your mental health in that alone.
It's also debilitating in terms
of social engagement and social interactions
because if someone is in your head constantly
saying things that are distressing to you,
it's very hard to engage normally
with other people which leads to social isolation.
It also leads to a greater need for increased care.
And also one
of the major things that it can lead to is suicide.
So we are talking about the negative experience
of voices in this video, but it's also important to note
that not everybody experiences voices in this way.
This is really common, especially in North America to
experience negative voices with schizophrenia,
but it is not the way everyone experiences voices.
And so we are going to be discussing findings
from an article that was published
in the clinical psychology review, which kind of goes
over several different studies that kind
of speculate on why there's this difference
between people who experience negative voices
and people who don't and kind of speculating
as to potential causes for this.
We'll link to this article in the description below.
All right.
So in this article, they discuss two major points
that seem to be emerging
as to why people experience these negative hallucinations.
And so these include experience of adverse life experiences.
And so this can include anything from sexual, physical
and emotional abuse as well as physical
and emotional neglect.
Another point that is emerging is the concept
of cultural significance in a person's life.
All right, so just diving into the first one,
being adverse life experiences, a little more,
they discussed two different studies
or three different studies
actually that find a little bit of different results.
The first one found a correlation
between adverse life effects
or adverse life experiences and negative voices.
Now this doesn't necessarily indicate causation
which means that adverse life experiences lead
to negative voices, but they did find correlation.
So the two were connected in some way.
The second study did not find correlation
but the third study found something interesting.
And so what this third study found was
that adverse life experiences became a proponent
for hypervigilance, which was a mediating factor
in terms of experiencing negative voices.
So what I mean by hypervigilance is
that if someone experienced a negative life experience
in their lifetime, it led to them being in a bit
of an increased and elevated state that was kind of fearful
of bad things happening again.
And this is what they mean by hypervigilance.
And so this hypervigilance is what they found led
to the experience of negative voices.
Now, again, this is all just speculation
and it's really more
of a correlational effect that was found
in these studies as opposed to, again, a causational effect.
So they don't know that this is what happens,
where adverse life experiences lead to negative voices
or this hypervigilance concept leads to negative voices
but they are speculating that it could be a potential cause.
And the second major point that they were discussing
in this article was the concept
of culture and cultural significance in a person's life.
And so they mentioned two studies in particular.
The first study was a bit of an Aero-base study.
This study examined patients with schizophrenia
from the same hospital, but from two different time periods,
the first one being from 1933 to 1939
and the second period being from 1986 to 1987.
And what they found in terms of these two cohort groups were
that, they all experienced
or mostly experienced auditory hallucinations
but the sources and the content of them were different.
And so the group
from the 1930s experienced primarily religious
and more benign auditory hallucinations
and people from the 1980s,
they also experienced religious hallucinations,
but they also experienced
more secular hallucinations as well
as technology-based hallucinations in terms
of the negative voices that they were experiencing.
So some examples
of these included the 1930s cohort experiencing
auditory hallucinations,
such as be a better person, live right,
be good and go to heaven, lean on the Lord.
So kind of these more benign
but religious toned hallucinations and the group
from the 1980s experienced hallucinations such
as kill oneself or others,
do perverse things, set fire to the lawn.
So clearly far more negative and distressing in a way.
And so there was also reported differences
in terms of effective content
of the auditory verbal hallucinations.
And so the 30s group was we want to go
to heaven versus the 80s group being more
like you will be crucified for your sins.
And so the cultural middle year of the time
really plays a role in terms of shaping the content
of these negative auditory hallucinations.
All right.
And the second study that was looked at in terms
of cultural significance was a cross-cultural study.
So there was a group that they examined in the United States
and also a group that they examined both in India
and Africa, they realized through their study that
there was a big difference in terms of the American group
having more negative experiences of hallucinations
and the group in India
and Africa having more benign and relational experiences
with their auditory hallucinations.
And so there was some speculation
as to why this may have been
and primarily it included the concept that in America,
there is more of a undertone of the self and the mind,
the mind essentially being a private matter
and being an individual matter.
And so the Indian group
and the African group saw the mind and whatnot
as more of a relational component and had a more
poorest relationship with the mind and thought.
And so,
if those two assumptions are correct,
it's kind of easy to see how the Americans might see voices
as more of an intrusion and a distressing thing, as opposed
to how the Indian and African cohort side, as more
of a benign relational thing that was connected
to the other people around them.
And so the American cohort
saw their negative hallucinations as
an external presence that wasn't necessarily a person.
And that was just kind of this menacing figure
in their mind.
Whereas the African and Indian cohort saw it more
as people in their life, they experienced the hallucinations
as other people in their life.
And they had more of her relationship
with their voice that wasn't necessarily negative
and that was more constructive in nature.
And so there is a huge cultural difference here
in terms of how Americans interpret their voices
and how cultures such as Indian cultures
and African cultures experience their voices.
All right.
So those two main things, adverse life experiences
and cultural components were the two main things discussed
in this protocol that could be reasons why someone
would experience negative voices.
I also wanna talk a bit more
about some of my own speculations
about why negative voices exist or happen.
So for me personally, I know that when I am
under a lot of stress, I think the voices get more negative.
And so I don't know if there's a correlation necessarily
between people who experience negative voices
and the amount of stress that they're under.
People in North America are under a lot of stress in terms
of just the capitalistic
individualistic society that we live in.
It creates a lot of stress in a person.
So maybe that is feeding
into the negative hallucinations a little bit.
I don't know.
I think that stigma and shame
and self-acceptance also play a large role in terms
of the occurrence of negative auditory hallucinations.
The go-to treatment modality
in North America is to Medicaid.
When someone is experiencing distressing voices
and to try to eradicate those voices as much as possible.
And so this kind of sends the message to patients
in North America, that they are faulty in some way
because they are experiencing voices and
that they need to work towards medicating away these voices.
So when they can't medicate away all of these voices,
it kind of makes sense that the voices might turn negative
and they might find or interpret these voices
as distressing or menacing because they shouldn't be there.
And so there might be a bit
of a shift necessary toward understanding
that it might be okay to live with some voices
and you may not need as much medication or
medication might not be the be all end all
in terms of how to deal with and manage your hallucinations.
I think there is still a lot of stigma
within our culture and society too, around mental illness
and especially mental illnesses such as schizophrenia.
And so I think that there is a lot of internalized shame
for people who are living with an illness
like schizophrenia, which could result in
some of that hypervigilance that I was talking about earlier
or could result in just negative self worth
which could easily lead
to negative voices being heard by the individual.
I know that for me personally, I've been
on a very long journey of self-acceptance and I'm for sure
not at a point of complete self-acceptance
but I do accept myself and my illness a lot more
than when I first started out on this journey.
And I've noticed a difference in terms
of the negativity of my hallucinations when I first started
out and first was experiencing these symptoms.
It was a lot more negative more frequently
and with a lot of work on self-acceptance and whatnot,
the frequency of the negativity in terms
of the voices has gone down a bit.
And so I think that self-acceptance plays a large role
in terms of the negativity of the voices as well.
And also, I think just an extension
of the cross-cultural study
that I talked about earlier, I think that,
collectivism versus individualism plays a big role
in terms of the cultural identity of a person
and how they experience their symptoms like hallucinations.
So if someone is in an individualistic society
such as in North America,
I think it's more likely that
the concept that I discussed earlier
of being a single person fighting
off this illness and thus interpreting it
as menacing or distressing and an intrusion on their mind
I think is probably the way things go
in an individualistic society, contrary
to a more collectivist society which
welcomes differences a little bit more
and celebrates differences and whatnot
and leans on that relational component as well.
I think that it creates a lot more room
for someone's experience
of hallucinations to be more positive in nature.
And another kind of idea that we were kind of
tossing around when brainstorming this video was the concept
of introvertedness versus extrovertedness
and whether or not that plays a role
maybe in someone's experience of hallucinations.
I personally am more of an introvert.
And so maybe I experience the hallucinations more
as an interfere, an unwanted interference
and an unwanted presence, which would maybe lead
to more negative experience of the voices.
Whereas if someone was more extroverted,
they may welcome the experience
of communicating with their voices a little bit more
and they may appreciate that extra company, which may lead
to more positive experiences of hallucinations.
I have a friend who is
very extroverted and she loves communicating
with her hallucinations most of the time.
And it's a very comforting presence
for her in her life and a positive one.
And so I don't know if this is a correlational component
but it's something to think about.
All right.
So in conclusion,
I just want to share that for me personally
when I'm experiencing really negative content
of auditory hallucinations, it's generally
a sign that I need to seek additional help and support.
And it's a sign that
things are kind of getting worse for me.
Now, that said, obviously,
this is not something that I experience on a constant basis.
And so my heart really goes out
to people who do experience this on a more frequent basis
and experience these negative voices
as a constant presence in their life.
I can't imagine what that must be like
because I know personally
that it's very distressing when the negativity comes my way
in terms of the voices that I experience
and it's really hard to manage and to get through.
So I understand and I really sympathize with you
if you experience it on a more frequent basis.
If this is a really distressing
and difficult to manage part of your symptoms,
being the negative voices that you hear,
please don't be afraid to reach
out for additional support or help with that.
This may mean changing up your medication
or altering doses or whatnot, or it may be more
therapeutic interventions such as CBT or that kind of thing
through therapy with someone to address your relationship
with the negative voices a little bit more
and maybe addressing some of that hypervigilance
if that's playing a role in your experience
of negative voices or working on
some of the things that may be contributing
to the voices being negative.
All right.
So thank you so much for watching this video.
I hope it was helpful or insightful in some way.
If you'd liked it, please make sure to give us a thumbs up
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Also again, if you would like to help support the creation
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please make sure to check out our Patreon page.
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Thank you so much again
for watching and as always wishing you
and your loved ones, good health, see you the next video.
Bye.