Psychiatry, and society in general, had been subverted by the almost axiomatic belief that "hearing voices" spelled madness and never occurred except in the context of severe mental disturbance. This experiment, designed by David Rosenhan, a Stanford psychologist (and himself a pseudopatient), emphasized, among other things, that the single symptom of "hearing voices" could suffice for an immediate, categorical diagnosis of schizophrenia even in the absence of any other symptoms or abnormalities of behavior. They even kept notes on their experiment, quite openly (this was registered in the nursing notes for one pseudopatient as "writing behavior"), but none of the pseudopatients were identified as such by the staff. ![]() Once admitted to the mental wards, they continued to speak and behave normally they reported to the medical staff that their hallucinated voices had disappeared and that they felt fine. Nonetheless, all of them were diagnosed as schizophrenic (except one, who was diagnosed with "manic-depressive psychosis"), hospitalized for up to two months, and prescribed antipsychotic medications (which they did not swallow). Their single complaint was that they "heard voices." They told hospital staff that they could not really make out what the voices said but that they heard the words "empty," "hollow," and "thud." Apart from this fabrication, they behaved normally and recounted their own (normal) past experiences and medical histories. It was entitled "On Being Sane in Insane Places," and it described how, as an experiment, eight "pseudopatients" with no history of mental illness presented themselves at a variety of hospitals across the United States. Listen to the following audio clip in which a patient describes their tinnitus journey with the North Wales Audiology service.In 1973 the journal Science published an article that caused an immediate furor. Helping hearing loss with appropriate hearing aids is particularly important with musical imagery tinnitus. Unfortunately, this form of tinnitus is sometimes initially mistaken for mental illness. However, once it has been recognised as tinnitus rather than a psychiatric condition it can be treated in the same way as other forms of tinnitus. This is referred to as auditory hallucinations. It usually occurs in older people who also have a hearing loss and quite often these people have a strong musical interest. The exact mechanism by which this form of tinnitus occurs is unknown but probably involves the auditory memory parts of the brain. Occasionally people have tinnitus that takes the form of recognisable musical sounds or even complete tunes rather than the more common ringing, hissing, buzzing, etc, sounds. ![]() About 10% of us experience tinnitus frequently and approximately 5% of the adult population in the UK experience persistent or troublesome tinnitus. Almost everyone gets the occasional ringing in the ears, either without any clear trigger or after exposure to loud sounds, be it at work or socially. In a mild form, tinnitus is extremely common. Tinnitus is not a disease or an illness, it is a non-specific symptom, that can be brought on by a mental or physical ‘change’, not necessarily related to hearing. The noises are usually described as ringing, whistling, hissing, buzzing or humming. ![]() ![]() Tinnitus is the term for noises heard ‘in the ear or ears’ or ‘in the head’ when no obvious source of sound is apparent.
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