By Melissa McElroy, Graduate Affiliate for Employees Communications and Engagement.
To mark Schizophrenia Consciousness Day, we spoke to Mark Hayward, Sussex Psychologist and lead of the Sussex Voice Clinic within the NHS Sussex Partnership Basis Belief (SPFT), about his analysis on listening to voices, a symptom generally skilled by folks with lived experiences of schizophrenia.
1. What motivates you as a researcher? A need for sufferers to obtain the highest quality psychological remedies for distressing voice listening to experiences.
2. What are the gaps in present schizophrenia (/listening to voices) analysis and the way does your analysis fill in these gaps? Cognitive Behaviour Remedy (CBT) is an evidence-based therapy for distressing voices that’s really useful for all sufferers with psychosis. Nonetheless, solely a few quarter of sufferers in England are supplied this therapy. We need to improve entry to CBT for psychosis sufferers. Considered one of our pioneering analysis programmes is exploring the advantages of CBT when supplied to psychosis sufferers by a broadly accessible and cost-effective workforce of briefly skilled therapists.
3. The place do you hope to see schizophrenia analysis develop sooner or later? Throughout the Sussex Voices Clinic we’ve developed quite a lot of interventions for distressing voices. We’ve got lately accomplished a small examine to discover the advantages of providing these interventions in a sequence the place sufferers selected what to do subsequent (the Feeling Heard examine). I’d wish to see extra strong evaluations of comparable pathways of interventions that may promote affected person selection and maximise the advantages that sufferers can obtain.
4. What influence does your analysis have on folks with lived experiences of schizophrenia and/or signs of schizophrenia, e.g. listening to voices? Our interventions provide accepting and non-judgemental areas the place sufferers can safely discover their voice listening to experiences and study expertise to handle these experiences.
5. What’s one thing you would like folks knew about schizophrenia? That voice listening to is skilled by sufferers with various psychological well being issues, and in addition by folks with no psychological well being issues.  When you hear voices, it doesn’t imply that you simply’re going ‘loopy’ or that you’ve psychosis. I would like sufferers and clinicians to speak freely about voice listening to and thereby cut back the isolation that may be created by the stigma and myths surrounding this expertise.
Discover out extra:
There are variety of research regarding signs of schizophrenia which can be at present lively involving researchers from the College of Sussex and SPFT, together with CONNECT, a nation-wide examine testing out whether or not data collected from a smartphone or wearable gadget can be utilized to foretell relapse of psychosis. If you want extra data, or to take part within the examine, please contact ConnectDigitalStudy@spft.nhs.uk for extra data, or go to CONNECT Digital Research.
Get entangled:
SPFT are searching for folks with a psychosis prognosis (resembling schizophrenia) who additionally see visions (or visible hallucinations) to participate in an thrilling examine growing understandings of those. One in three folks with psychosis have visions, also called visible hallucinations. Surprisingly, little is thought about these experiences. Researchers try to grasp extra concerning the ideas folks have about their visions and the influence they’ll have on their lives. If you want to participate, please contact Seafra Barrett, Analysis Assistant within the Voices Clinic analysis group: seafra.barrett@spft.nhs.uk. Particulars of all present and upcoming research throughout the Voice Clinic may be discovered on the Voices Clinic webpage.
Additional details about the Sussex Psychosis (Paranoia) Experiences and Restoration (SuPER) Clinic may be discovered on their webpage, together with particulars of present therapies supplied and up to date analysis publications.
To study extra about SPFT analysis, watch this brief video that includes Mark Hayward.
Mark Hayward is an Honorary Professor of Psychology on the College of Sussex and Director of Analysis for Sussex Partnership Basis Belief, the place he’s additionally the medical lead for the Sussex Voices Clinic. Mark’s analysis actions have targeted totally on the exploration of voice listening to inside relational frameworks – acknowledging the voice as an interpersonal ‘different’ and researching differing facets of the relationships that folks can develop with their voices. These relationships have been central to the event and analysis of recent types of particular person and group remedy that may facilitate acceptance of self and voices by the usage of assertiveness and mindfulness coaching.  See Mark’s Sussex profile to seek out out extra about his analysis at Sussex.
