A case report of compassion-focused therapy for distressing voice-hearing experiences

This paper describes a 6-month period of compassion-focused therapy (CFT) for a client who has a 35-year history of hearing voices that are threatening, derogatory, and abusive. In this intervention, the client is encouraged to develop compassionate motives toward herself and to her voices, recognizing that her voices may have been functional in the context of difficult early experiences. The client develops a compassionate self-identity, which becomes the vehicle through which she approaches therapeutic tasks, such as listening and talking to voices, engaging with traumatic childhood pain, and resolving emotional conflicts. The client is an author on this study, so is able to provide valuable first-hand insights into the experience of working compassionately with her voices, and of experiencing CFT techniques for the first time.