Responding mindfully to distressing voices: links with meaning, affect and relationship with voice

Chadwick, Paul, Barnbrook, Emily and Newman-Taylor, Katherine (2007) Responding mindfully to distressing voices: links with meaning, affect and relationship with voice. [in special issue: Towards a New Understanding of Psychosis] Tidsskrift for Norsk Psykologforening, 44 (5), 581-587.

Abstract

Research on mindfulness-based interventions has been limited by lack of measures of mindfulness. Several measures of mindfulness have been developed, but none which applies to the experience of hearing voices, or auditory hallucination. This research examines the reliability and validity of the Southampton Mindfulness of Voices Questionnaire (SMQV), a measure of mindful relating to auditory hallucinations, and tests predicted links with affect, meaning and relationship to voice. Fifty-nine participants with a diagnosis of schizophrenia who were currently experiencing auditory hallucinations participated. Participants completed the 16 item SMQV, and measures of general mindfulness, affect and beliefs about voices. The SMVQ had a Cronbach's alpha of .84, correlated significantly with a mindfulness measure, was significantly negatively correlated with negative affect and distress associated with voices. SMVQ scores correlated negatively with beliefs about voices' malevolence and omnipotence and resistance to voice. These data suggest that the scale is internally reliable and valid within the limits of the present study, and support predicted links between meaning and mindful relating. Research and clinical utility are discussed.

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Contributors

Author: Katherine Newman-Taylor

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