Hallucinosis is a condition, the clinical picture of which is almost completely exhausted by abundant hallucinations and is not accompanied by stupefaction. There are acute and chronic hallucinosis, depending on the type of hallucinations - verbal, visual and tactile.

Verbal hallucinosis - an influx of auditory hallucinations in the form of a monologue, dialogue, or multiple “voices”; accompanied by fear, anxiety, motor restlessness, and often figurative delirium. Motor restlessness may fade as hallucinosis develops; patients outwardly remain calm or only sometimes, interrupting work or conversation, listen to something. The examination reveals true hallucinations and pseudohallucinations, which predominate in cases of chronic verbal hallucinosis.

Acute symptomatic psychoses can occur in the form of acute verbal hallucinosis (without stupefaction). Such psychosis develops suddenly with the appearance of verbal hallucinations of a commentary nature (usually in the form of dialogue), accompanied by confusion, anxiety and fear. In the future, hallucinations may acquire imperative content. In this state, patients, under the influence of hallucinatory experiences, commit dangerous actions towards others and themselves. Verbal hallucinosis worsens at night. A rapid influx of verbal hallucinations can lead to the development of so-called hallucinatory confusion.

With vascular psychoses, chronic verbal hallucinosis may appear, often developing after acute hallucinatory psychosis. Chronic vascular hallucinosis is defined by polyvocal true verbal hallucinosis. It flows in waves, often at the height of development it becomes scenic (scenes of public condemnation of a patient, etc.), usually intensifies in the evening and at night, and has a predominantly threatening content. The intensity of hallucinosis is subject to temporary fluctuations with the temporary appearance of criticism of hallucinatory experiences (when they weaken).

Verbal hallucinosis occurs in intoxication (alcohol, hashish, barbiturate, etc.) psychoses, organic diseases of the brain (traumatic, vascular, syphilitic lesions), epilepsy, symptomatic psychoses, schizophrenia.

TASK.

Patient S., 60 years old, pensioner. About 5 years ago, I once quarreled with my neighbor, got upset, cried, and didn’t sleep well at night. The next morning I heard the voices of a neighbor and her relatives behind the wall, who threatened to kill her and the children. Fear developed, she couldn’t stay at home alone, she was afraid to go into the common kitchen. Since then, for 5 years, she has almost constantly heard the same voices that threaten the patient, order her to throw herself out of the window, and call her insulting names. Sometimes she hears the voice of her son, who calms the patient and advises her to get treatment. Voices come from behind the wall, from behind the window, and are perceived by the patient as real, ordinary human speech. In this speech, the same phrases are often repeated, sounding in the same timbre, with the same voice modulations. Sometimes words are pronounced rhythmically, like the ticking of a clock, in time with the painful pulsation of blood vessels that is felt. When voices intensify in silence, especially at night, the patient becomes anxious, runs up to the windows, claims that her children are now being killed, and she can do nothing to help them. In a noisy room and during a conversation with a patient, voices completely disappear. She readily agrees that these voices have a painful origin, but immediately asks why the neighbor wants to kill her.

What syndrome is this?

SAMPLE CORRECT ANSWER

Persistent auditory (verbal) true hallucinations come to the fore in the patient’s picture of the disease. These hallucinations are characterized by the same type over many years and by the unpleasant, threatening content of hallucinatory speech. Primary here is a violation of perception, the sensory sphere. Delusional ideas of persecution appear as if “secondary” and follow from the content of the hallucination. A similar picture of the disease is characteristic of long-term, chronic verbal hallucinosis.

Auditory hallucination- a form of hallucination when the perception of sounds occurs without auditory stimulation. There is a common form of auditory hallucination in which a person hears one or more voices.

Types of auditory hallucinations

Simple auditory hallucinations

Acoasma

Main article: Acoasm

Non-speech hallucinations are characteristic. With this type of hallucination, a person hears individual sounds of noise, hissing, roaring, and buzzing. Often there are the most specific sounds associated with certain objects and phenomena: steps, knocks, creaking floorboards, and so on.

Phonemes

The simplest speech deceptions are typical in the form of shouts, individual syllables or fragments of words.

Complex auditory hallucinations

Hallucinations of musical content

With this type of hallucination, one can hear the playing of musical instruments, singing, a choir, known melodies or excerpts thereof, and even unfamiliar music.

Potential causes of musical hallucinations:

• metal-alcohol psychoses: often these are vulgar ditties, obscene songs, songs of drunken groups.
• epileptic psychosis: in epileptic psychosis, hallucinations of musical origin often look like the sound of an organ, sacred music, the ringing of church bells, the sounds of magical, “heavenly” music.
• schizophrenia.

Verbal (verbal) hallucinations

With verbal hallucinations, individual words, conversations, or phrases are heard. The content of statements may be absurd, devoid of any meaning, but most often verbal hallucinations express ideas and thoughts that are not indifferent to patients. S.S. Korsakov considered hallucinations of this kind as thoughts dressed in a bright sensual shell. V. A. Gilyarovsky pointed out that hallucinatory disorders are directly related to a person’s inner world, his state of mind. They express disturbances in mental activity, personal qualities, and the dynamics of the disease. In particular, in their structure one can detect disorders of other mental processes: thinking (for example, its fragmentation), will (echolalia), and so on.

There are a large number of types of verbal hallucinations, depending on their plot. Among them are:

• Commentary (evaluative) hallucinations. The opinion of voices about the patient's behavior is reflected. An opinion can have a different connotation: for example, benevolent or judgmental. “Voices” can characterize and evaluate current, past actions or intentions for the future.

• Threatening. Hallucinations can acquire a threatening character, consonant with delusional ideas of persecution. Imaginary threats of murder, torture, and discredit are perceived. Sometimes they have a clearly expressed sadistic overtones.

• Imperative hallucinations. A type of verbal hallucination that is socially dangerous. Contains orders to do something or prohibitions on actions, to commit actions that directly contradict conscious intentions: including attempting suicide or self-harm, refusing to take food, medicine or talking with a doctor, and so on. Patients often take these orders personally.

Potential Causes

One of the main causes of auditory hallucinations, in the case of psychotic patients, is schizophrenia. In such cases, patients exhibit a consistent increase in the activity of the thalamic and subcortical nuclei of the striatum, hypothalamus and paraliminal regions; confirmed by positron emission and magnetic resonance imaging. Another comparative study of patients found increases in temporal white matter and temporal gray matter volumes (in areas that are critical for internal and external speech). The implication is that both functional and structural abnormalities in the brain can cause auditory hallucinations, but both may have a genetic component. It is known that mood disorder can also cause auditory hallucinations, but they are more mild than those caused by psychosis. Auditory hallucinations are a relatively common complication of serious neurocognitive disorders (dementia) such as Alzheimer's disease.

Research has shown that auditory hallucinations, particularly voices commenting and voices telling people to harm themselves or others, are much more common in psychotic patients who experienced physical or sexual abuse as children than in psychotic patients who were not abused as children. violence. Moreover, the stronger the form of violence (incest or a combination of both physical and sexual abuse of children), the stronger the degree of hallucinations. If there were multiple episodes of violence, this also influenced the risk of developing hallucinations. It has been noted that the content of hallucinations in people who have been victims of childhood sexual abuse includes both elements of flashbacks (flashbacks of memories of a traumatic experience) and more symbolic embodiments of the traumatic experience. For example, a woman who had been sexually abused by her father since age 5 heard "men's voices outside her head and children's voices screaming inside her head." In another case, when a patient experienced hallucinations telling her to kill herself, she identified the voice as that of the perpetrator.

Diagnosis and treatment methods

Pharmaceuticals

The main medications used in the treatment of auditory hallucinations are antipsychotic drugs, which affect dopamine metabolism. If the main diagnosis is an affective disorder, then antidepressants or mood stabilizers are often additionally used. These drugs allow a person to function normally, but are not essentially a treatment, since they do not eliminate the root cause of the thinking disorder.

Psychological treatments

Cognitive therapy was found to help reduce the frequency and distress of auditory hallucinations, especially in the presence of other psychotic symptoms. Intensive supportive therapy was found to reduce the frequency of auditory hallucinations and increase the patient's resistance to hallucinations, leading to a significant reduction in their negative impact. Other cognitive and behavioral treatments have been used with mixed success.

Experimental and alternative treatments

In recent years, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has been studied as a biological treatment for auditory hallucinations. TMS affects the neural activity of the cortical areas responsible for speech. Research has shown that when TMS is used as an adjunct to antipsychotic treatment in complex cases, the frequency and intensity of auditory hallucinations can be reduced. Another source for unconventional methods is the discovery of the international voice-hearing movement.

Current Research

Non-psychotic symptoms

Research continues into auditory hallucinations that are not a symptom of a particular psychotic illness. Most often, auditory hallucinations occur without psychotic symptoms in prepubertal children. These studies found that a remarkably high percentage of children (up to 14% of respondents) heard sounds or voices without any external cause; although it should also be noted that "sounds" as psychiatrists believe are not examples of auditory hallucinations. It is important to distinguish auditory hallucinations from “sounds” or normal internal dialogue, since these phenomena are not characteristic of mental illness.

Reasons

The causes of auditory hallucinations with nonpsychotic symptoms are unclear. Durham University doctor Charles Fernyhough, exploring the role of the inner voice in auditory hallucinations, offers two alternative hypotheses for the origin of auditory hallucinations in people without psychosis. Both versions are based on research into the process of internalization of the inner voice.

Internalization of the inner voice

• First level (external dialogue) makes it possible to maintain an external dialogue with another person, for example when a baby talks to his parents.
• Second level (private speech) includes the ability to conduct external dialogue; It has been observed that children comment on the process of play when playing with dolls or other toys.
• Third level (extended inner speech) is the first internal level of speech. Allows you to conduct internal monologues when reading to yourself or viewing lists.
• Level four (compression of inner speech) is the final level of the internalization process. Allows you to simply think without the need to express thoughts in words to grasp the meaning of the thought.

Internalization disorder

A disruption may occur during the normal process of inner voice acquisition when a person is unable to identify his or her own inner voice. Thus, the first and fourth levels of internalization are mixed.

Extension

The disorder may manifest itself in the internalization of the inner voice when a second one appears. which seems alien to a person; The problem occurs when the fourth and first levels are shifted.

Treatment

Psychopharmacological treatment uses antipsychotic drugs. Research in psychology has shown that the first step in treating a patient is to recognize that the voices he hears are figments of his imagination. Understanding this allows patients to regain control over their lives. Additional psychological interventions may influence the management of auditory hallucinations, but further research is required to prove this.

Hallucinations are the imaginary perception of phenomena that do not exist in reality. Hallucinatory images displace real ones and are perceived by the patient as objectively existing.

Hallucinosis, or hallucinatory syndrome, is a state of influx of hallucinations without clouding of consciousness. An important characteristic of hallucinosis is clarity of consciousness. If hallucinations occur against the background of confusion, they cannot be called hallucinatory syndrome. This is possible with delirium and various twilight states.

Hallucinosis is often accompanied by the development of delusional ideas. However, it is worth understanding that hallucinatory-delusional syndromes are independent symptoms; the addition of delusions cannot be explained by the presence of hallucinations and attempts to justify them to the patient. Many cases of hallucinosis occur without the addition of delirium.

Hallucinatory syndrome, like any psychopathological condition, can be acute or chronic. Acute hallucinosis has a brighter, more intense picture, with many visual images, and the patient is highly involved in what is happening. Chronic hallucinosis is more monotonous; the patient practically does not pay attention to them.

Types of hallucinosis

Depending on which sense organs are predominantly involved in the hallucinatory syndrome, different types of hallucinations are distinguished. It is customary to describe visual, verbal and other varieties of them. Assessing the type of hallucinations is important for correct diagnosis and selection of further treatment tactics.

Visual hallucinosis is relatively rare and in most cases is not accompanied by delusions or other psychopathological symptoms:

• Bonnet hallucinosis occurs in individuals with complete or almost complete loss of vision. Criticism of emerging images has been preserved. Hallucinatory images are represented by bright, moving images of animals and people of normal or reduced size. Often relatives become the object of hallucinations.
• Lhermitte's hallucinosis (peduncular visual hallucinosis) is typical for patients with damage to the cerebral peduncles. Grows in darkness or unlit areas. Hallucinatory images are vague, indistinct, in the form of groups of people or animals, scenes with their participation, often moving hallucinations. The appearance of images causes surprise in patients; criticality remains.
• Van Bogart's hallucinosis. Characteristic of subacute viral encephalitis. The images are bright, numerous, in the form of flowers, birds, butterflies. Sometimes it is considered as the first manifestation of delirium.

Verbal hallucinosis refers to auditory hallucinations. There are many varieties of them - single voices, dialogues or imaginary conversations of a large number of people. They can be commentary, judgmental, threatening, commanding or neutral. This type of hallucinosis more often than others develops into hallucinatory-delusional syndrome. Delusions are identical in content to hallucinations.

The onset of verbal hallucinations is preceded by a feeling of anxiety, fear, and worry. Hallucinations begin with individual words and phrases, developing into detailed dialogues and orders. The moments of maximum manifestation of hallucinosis are accompanied by pronounced motor excitement and fear. Under the influence of voices at such moments, crimes can be committed, escapes from home or a medical institution, attacks on relatives and medical staff.

Subsidence of symptoms and improvement in general condition do not necessarily indicate recovery. Often this is only a temporary lull, after which an equally significant deterioration of the condition occurs.

The chronicity of verbal hallucinosis is accompanied by a decrease in the variety of voices, a change in their intonations from a sharply commanding tone to a persuasive tone, and the monotony of hallucinations. At the same time, the patient’s condition improves, the influence of hallucinations on behavior decreases, and criticality towards them increases.

Hallucinatory syndrome of general feeling. Such syndromes include visceral and tactile hallucinations. In both cases, the patient complains of the presence of moving or non-moving living beings or inanimate objects that cause unpleasant sensations. In the case of tactile hallucinations, imaginary objects are located on the surface of the body; in visceral hallucinations, they are located inside, often in a specific organ. Most often, the objects of hallucinosis are various worms, insects and their clusters. Cases of complaints about the presence of larger living creatures, such as frogs, have also been described. Hallucinations of general feeling are characterized by great persistence. Patients often visit therapists for years with a variety of complaints and receive treatment for several illnesses before seeing a psychiatrist. In the case of complaints about a frog in the stomach, all the patient’s symptoms disappeared after she was induced to vomit at a psychiatrist’s appointment and a live frog was introduced into the vomit.

Complaints similar to hallucinations of general feeling are characteristic of senestopathies. The main difference is the absence of a specific substrate for unpleasant sensations during senestopathies. Patients complain of pain, pulling, cutting sensations, heaviness in various internal organs, but do not indicate its connection with specific objects - insects, stones, animals, as in hallucinations of a general feeling.

Taste and olfactory hallucinatory syndromes practically do not occur; in the vast majority of cases, they are part of the symptoms of some mental illness.

Causes of hallucinosis

It is possible both the isolated development of a hallucinatory syndrome (for example, Bonnet visual hallucinosis in old people with poor vision) and its inclusion in the structure of various mental and organic diseases. The most common causes of hallucinosis:

1. Epilepsy. Hallucinations most often appear in the structure of the aura before a seizure. Characterized by large-scale, scenic visual hallucinations, with the participation of a large number of people, detailed scenes of mass events, disasters. A distinctive feature is the predominance of blue and scarlet tones in the picture. Less commonly, olfactory or verbal hallucinosis appears.
2. Organic diseases of the brain. The type of hallucinosis depends on the location of the lesion (tumor, cyst, injured area), so hallucinations of almost any type are possible.
3. Schizophrenia. Various, numerous hallucinations are characteristic. In most cases, the disease begins with verbal hallucinosis, which can later be joined by visual hallucinosis. A developed system of delusional ideas arises. Negative symptoms are required.
4. Symptomatic psychoses are caused by long-term severe somatic and infectious diseases. The most characteristic of them is verbal hallucinosis with delusions and psychomotor agitation.
5. Encephalitis. Various types of hallucinatory syndromes are possible. Visual hallucinations can range from elementary (lights, flashes) to extensive stage hallucinations, typically scenes from family life or professional ones. Verbal hallucinosis is rare; elementary variants of auditory hallucinations are possible - music, noise.

Treatment

Consists of treating the underlying disease. To quickly relieve the hallucinatory syndrome, tranquilizers and antipsychotics are prescribed.

In psychology, special attention is paid to hallucinations, which come in various types and symptoms. The reasons for their occurrence often lie in the brain, where corresponding images, sounds, and sensations that do not exist arise. Psychologists talk about the need to treat the person who has hallucinations, since they do not indicate health.

Hallucinations mean the perception by the senses of something that is not in reality. You can see portals to other worlds, demons that surround you, hear voices, etc. In ancient times, these manifestations were considered normal and even desirable. People thought that in this way they connected with the divine worlds, which could endow them with knowledge or power.

The most primitive method of achieving hallucinations is the use of special mushrooms or alcohol in large quantities. Don't forget about drugs, under the influence of which people also experience certain sensations.

Hallucinations are an illusion, a deception, a mirage that does not exist in reality. Some scientists explain this by saying that signals in the brain appear in different places, which is why the pictures get mixed up and begin to distort reality.

However, there are also more pathological causes of hallucinations. These are diseases when brain activity is disrupted. There are many mental illnesses that include hallucinations as one of their symptoms.

Treatment of all types of hallucinations is carried out exclusively with medication. Only doctors can help restore health or improve it.

What are hallucinations?

People often use the word hallucinations. What is it? This is the perception of the surrounding world, the appearance of a picture without a real external stimulus. In simple terms, a person can see a chair, although in reality there are only trees surrounding him.

This may be a consequence of severe fatigue, when people often use various medications and psychotropic substances for self-soothing, as well as serious neurological diseases. In the external world there is no stimulus that is seen or felt by a person. He sees images that are not there, sounds that do not sound, sensations that are not produced by the world around him. Hallucinations are an error of perception by the senses when a person hears, sees or feels something that is not really there.

Conventionally, hallucinations are divided into:

• true - images that are projected externally and do not differ from real objects, have persuasiveness and a sensually bright color;
• pseudohallucinations are sensations projected in the internal sphere of consciousness as a result of the influence of an external force.

Pseudohallucinations are of a violent and intrusive nature, in which the patient seems to be really influenced by third parties. He begins to distrust people, to believe in aliens, otherworldly forces, because this is the only way he can explain the occurrence of his sensations.

Hallucinations should be distinguished from:

• Mirages are images that obey the laws of physics.
• Illusions are a distorted perception of really existing objects.

Hallucinations appear without the presence of real objects, people and phenomena to which the person refers.

Types of hallucinations

There are different types of hallucinations, which depend on the sense organ through which they are perceived:

1. Visual.
2. Auditory.
3. Olfactory.
4. Flavoring.
5. General: muscular and visceral.

Auditory hallucinations are divided into the following types:

1. Elementary: voices, noises, sounds.
2. Verbal, which are imperative, speech motor, commentary, threatening, contrasting illusory perception.

Imperative hallucinations are of a commanding nature and often force the patient to commit a bad act. He is unable to resist, so he becomes dangerous both to himself and to others. The patient can cut off his own finger, kill or hit someone, steal, etc.

Threatening hallucinations are expressed in hearing voices that threaten the patient with something: to kill, offend, hit, etc.

The contrasting hallucinations are a dialogue between two voices directed at each other. One voice can condemn the patient and talk about the need for punishment. Another voice will timidly defend him, pointing out the possibility of deferring the punishment. The voices speak to each other, giving the patient only orders that contradict each other.

Speech motor hallucinations are expressed in the fact that the patient feels as if some force has taken over his voice, tongue and mouth and is now transmitting some messages through him. Often a person thinks that he is speaking in a different language, although in fact he is speaking in his own.

Visual hallucinations are the second most common and are divided into the following types:

1. Elementary: smoke, flash of light, fog.
2. Subject:

• Zoopsia is the vision of animals.
• Polyopic – vision of many identical, carbon-copy illusory objects.
• Demonomaniacal - visions of characters from mythology, aliens.
• Diplopic - vision of double images.
• Panoramic – vision of bright pictures.
• Scene-like - a vision of some story lines.
• Endoscopic - seeing other objects inside your body.
• Autovisceroscopic – vision of one’s internal organs.
• Autoscopic – seeing one’s doubles who copy the patient’s behavior. Sometimes it's the inability to see yourself in the mirror.
• Microscopic – seeing people in reduced sizes.
• Macroscopic – seeing objects magnified.
• Adelomorphic - seeing objects as fuzzy, without configuration or shape.
• Extracampal - visions with angular vision. When you turn your head in their direction, the visions stop.
• Hemianopsia – loss of one half of vision.

Hallucinations of Charles Bonnet characterize their appearance with a true violation of perception by the senses. With otitis media, auditory hallucinations may occur, and with retinal detachment, visual hallucinations may occur.

Olfactory hallucinations often overlap with olfactory illusions, when a person thinks that he hears odors of a disgusting nature. For example, he may smell the smell of a decomposing body. This often leads to refusal of food.

Gustatory hallucinations may be accompanied by olfactory hallucinations, when a rotten taste may be felt in the mouth, etc.

Tactile hallucinations are expressed in sensations on the body, which are divided into the following types:

1. Hygric – sensation of fluid on the body.
2. Thermal - touching an object with low or high temperature.
3. Haptic – girth from the back.
4. Internal or external zoopathy is the sensation of insects on or under the skin.

Depending on the analyzer, hallucinations are divided into:

• Reflex – irritation of one analyzer after exposure to another.
• Psychomotor (kinesthetic) - a feeling of movement in individual parts of the body in the absence of any movements in the real world.
• Ecstatic – vivid, emotional images under the influence of ecstasy.

Hallucinations in children are often confused with illusions that help little people understand the world around them.

Causes of hallucinations

Visual hallucinations are visions that are not supported by anything from real life. The patient can take part in them. The causes of their occurrence can be the abuse of alcohol (delirium delirium), drugs, psychostimulants (LSD, cocaine, etc.), medications (for example, antidepressants).

Another cause of both visual and auditory hallucinations is a mental illness, for example, peduncular, schizophrenia, partial seizure. The influence of poisoning should also be noted.

Olfactory hallucinations are a consequence of various mental illnesses (schizophrenia), brain defects (damage to the temporal lobe). Encephalitis caused by herpes, partial seizures provoke not only olfactory, but also taste hallucinations.

Tactile hallucinations can be a consequence. It also causes visual and auditory hallucinations. Unpleasant sensations inside the body can be caused by encephalitis or schizophrenia.

Hallucinations are distinguished by their emotionality and vividness. The brighter and more emotional the visions, the more a person gets involved in them. Otherwise, he simply remains indifferent.

Scientists cannot clearly identify the factors that influence the occurrence of hallucinations. The reasons remain unclear and unexplored. However, another factor stands out - mass suggestion, when a large number of people can see what they have been inspired to see. This will be called “mass psychosis”, when healthy people simply submit to external influences.

Other causes of hallucinations include:

• Aging. Inevitable changes for the worse occur in the body. Dementia, paranoia and other illnesses can provoke various visions.
• Depressed mood, fear of death, pessimism, and increased anxiety also provoke various visions.
• Taking hallucinogenic mushrooms.

Here is a list of diseases on the psychiatric help website that provoke hallucinations:

1. Alcohol psychosis.
2. Schizophrenia.
3. Brain tumor.
4. Herpetic encephalitis.
5. Syphilis.
6. Infectious diseases.
7. Cerebral atherosclerosis.
8. Hypothermia.
9. Decompensation of cardiovascular diseases.
10. Rheumatic diseases of blood vessels and heart.
11. Amentia.
12. Psychosis.

Symptoms of hallucinations

Hallucinations differ in their symptoms only in how they manifest themselves. Visual hallucinations will be different from olfactory hallucinations. However, they all have one symptom - seeing something that does not exist.

Symptoms may include:

1. Vision of movement under the skin, changes in internal organs.
2. Smelling smells that no one else can smell.
3. Hearing voices that no one else can hear.
4. Hearing doors slamming, knocking, footsteps, music in their real absence.
5. Seeing patterns, creatures, lights that no one else sees.

The main symptom is that a person sees or hears something that is not available to others. Nothing is happening in the world, but the patient talks about the presence of some creatures, sounds, smells, etc.

Hallucinations can occur both in the external world and affect the human body. If they are abundant and accompanied by delusions, then we are talking about hallucinosis. This disorder often becomes a chronic condition in which the patient can maintain orderly behavior, a critical attitude towards visions or voices, and efficiency.

People with dementia often experience visual hallucinations. Individuals with paranoia experience gustatory, olfactory, or tactile hallucinations.

Treatment of hallucinations

Before starting treatment for hallucinations, doctors examine the patient to identify the causes of their occurrence. The main therapy is aimed at eliminating the disease that provoked the disease, otherwise it is aimed at eliminating or mitigating symptoms.

There is no clear course of treatment, since there are many causes of hallucinations. Medicine uses an individual approach, where medications are selected based on what doctors are trying to cure.

If hallucinations are provoked by taking medications or psychotropic substances, then they are excluded from use. The patient’s body is also cleansed if poisoning has been detected.

The patient is isolated: either locked in the house or hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital. Drugs are used to relieve tension, as well as eliminate hallucinations and delusions. Tizercin, Aminazine, Haloperidol, Trisedil are administered intramuscularly.

Individual psychotherapy is also used, which is aimed at restoring a person’s mental health. The set of measures is individual, depending on the causes and symptoms of hallucinations.

Forecast

Refusing treatment is not advisable. Hallucinations are a progressive disease that will only worsen the patient's condition. The forecast in this case will be disappointing, since a person is not able to distinguish the real from the imaginary.

The result of the lack of treatment can only be the development of the disease, when a person becomes more and more distant from reality, plunging into his own world. Depending on the impact of hallucinations, life expectancy may be shortened or remain unchanged.

If hallucinations are caused by illness or the use of psychotropic substances, then the patient will not be able to help himself. His body will collapse, his consciousness will begin to change, which will put the patient’s life into question: how long will he live?

Hallucinations do not indicate a healthy state of a person. If they occur, then you should consult a doctor who will begin individual treatment aimed at restoring brain function.

The cardinal feature is considered to be auditory. In this case, patients hear voices that do not exist in reality. Moreover, the voices are always varied - sometimes male, sometimes female, sometimes mischievous children, who are constantly talking to each other. In some cases, the conversation concerns a specific patient, they give him advice, scold him, or, conversely, approve of his actions. In the vast majority of cases, such patients have a depressed background mood, the person is in constant tension, often there is anxiety, and even obvious fear. It happens that verbal hallucinations lose their neutral tone and acquire imperative intonations, which in turn leads to the formation of suicidal tendencies.

Verbal hallucinations differ in that against their background the development of delusions occurs. Basically, such delirium arises from deceptions of the senses; in any case, at first it is simple, characterized by monotony, and often consists of the patient accepting the real existence of the hallucinatory images that have arisen. This phenomenon does not have a tendency to further progress; it can often remain unreliably fixed for quite a long time, so patients can easily refuse it. Most often, in the presence of verbal hallucinations, patients do not perceive them critically, and some individuals even try to get advice from the “voices” on various everyday issues.

If verbal hallucinosis continues for a long time, then the person becomes passive, sloppy, he spends a long time in bed, and his main occupation is listening to “voices.” Often there is a tendency in such patients to dissimulate, which manifests itself in absurd and unexpected actions. For example, a patient may quit his job for no apparent reason, he may also leave his family, move to live in another city, and so on. Basically, verbal hallucinations are characterized by a chronic course and high resistance to therapeutic effects.

Causes of verbal hallucinations

Against the background of multiple causes of hallucinations of various types, a number of main ones always stand out. In this case, verbal hallucinosis may be caused by diseases such as alcoholism, vascular psychosis, senile psychosis, cerebral syphilis, and traumatic lesions. Patients with verbal hallucinations quickly develop a disorder such as. If verbal hallucinations arise in the form of people’s speech, then they are classified in relation to the patient - that is, there are neutral hallucinations that comment, and imperative hallucinations that give orders to the patient for certain actions.

For example, a person receives an order to set fire to his apartment, damage a valuable item, or injure someone or himself. Such verbal hallucinations are especially dangerous. Among the causes of verbal hallucinations, experts identify delirium tremens. In this case, patients complain that “voices” constantly respond to emerging thoughts, act on them with electricity, and sometimes verbal hallucinations are heard by the patient as if they were being transmitted over the phone. Experts also say that even after the signs of delirium tremens have been eliminated, verbal hallucinations can haunt a person for a long time.

Among the causes of verbal pain, taking various medications is not the least important, especially in cases where the patient self-medicates. Anticonvulsant medications are especially dangerous in this regard. Sometimes, in order to get rid of auditory hallucinations, it is necessary to discontinue a certain drug, or replace it with another. Also, medical practice knows many cases where the cause of verbal hallucinations was a defective hearing aid. The fact is that some hearing aids are capable of picking up waves from radio stations and quietly broadcasting, thereby frightening a person and leading to complete bewilderment.

Treatment of verbal hallucinations

Doctors say that in the treatment of hallucinations everything happens very individually, because each patient has his own cause, which is sometimes not easy to identify. The first step to recovery is a medical examination, during which the correct strategy for dealing with hallucination will be developed. Basically, this work is performed by a psychiatrist. In certain situations, depending on the patient’s condition, the specialist prescribes psychotropic medications, or a new generation, which are most effective and have almost no side effects.

But you should know that sometimes treatment is successfully carried out using simpler means. Therefore, it is not at all necessary to ask the doctor to prescribe expensive, rare drugs. In the treatment of a patient suffering from verbal hallucinations, family members who are constantly with the patient and provide him with support should take an active part. Under no circumstances should you make fun of a person, make fun of his fears, and prove that no voices exist. In such a situation, he still believes, first of all, himself, his feelings.