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Neil Thomas

9 papers in the library · 144 citations · publishing 2019-2026

Papers

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Relational Therapies for People Who Hear Voices: Operationalisation and Current Status of an Emergent Group of Psychological Therapies.

Schizophrenia Bulletin January 16, 2026 Neil Thomas, Thomas Ward, Eleanor Longden et al.

A recent theme in the development of psychological interventions for hearing voices (auditory verbal hallucinations) has been the emergence of a group of overlapping approaches increasingly referred to as relational therapies: Relating Therapy (RT), Talking with Voices (TwV), and AVATAR Therapy (AT). Collaborative discussion among a group of researchers involved in developing these...

Hearing voices and the quest for autonomy: An interpretative phenomenological analysis.

Psychology and psychotherapy December 7, 2025 Sepinood Noroozi, Nastaran Doroud, Eleanor Longden et al.

Hearing voices is often experienced as being controlling, powerful, threatening or critical. This study aimed to examine the lived experiences of autonomy among people who hear voices. Employing a qualitative design, this study sought to examine the personal narratives and meaning-making processes of voice hearers and gain deeper insights into the nuanced ways autonomy is experienced,...

Hearing voices and other altered perceptual experiences across psychotic, mood, and anxiety disorders: from phenomenology and mechanisms to future directions.

Schizophrenia (Heidelberg, Germany) September 29, 2025 Wei Lin Toh, Sophie Richards, Charles Fernyhough et al. 4 citations

While voice-hearing in psychosis has received much attention, perceptual experiences in other sensory modalities and psychiatric conditions have remained relatively overlooked. The present review aimed to address this gap by providing an overview of voices/altered perceptual experiences (APE) across psychotic, mood and anxiety disorders in terms of phenomenological characteristics,...

Examining the Use of Virtual Reality to Support Mindfulness Skills Practice in Mood and Anxiety Disorders: Mixed Methods Study.

Journal of Medical Internet Research December 6, 2024 Rebecca Blackmore, Claudia Giles, Hailey Tremain et al. 23 citations

Virtual reality (VR) has been proposed as a technology to support mindfulness practice through promoting increased engagement and presence. The proposed benefits of this technology have been largely unexamined with clinical populations. Further research is required to understand its clinical potential and utility in improving and managing mental health symptoms. This study aims to investigate...

The Phenomenology of Visual and Other Nonauditory Hallucinations in Affective and Nonaffective Psychosis: A Mixed Methods Analysis.

The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease April 1, 2024 Wei Lin Toh, Neil Thomas, Susan Lee Rossell 1 citation

Nonauditory hallucinations in psychosis have not received as much attention relative to voice-hearing experiences. The current paper aimed to document the characteristics of these hallucinations in affective and nonaffective psychosis. Participants were selected from a primary voice-hearing sample, who had endorsed visual, tactile, or olfactory hallucinations ( N = 55-75). A comprehensive,...

Intersections of phenomenology, voice beliefs and distress in bipolar disorder: a comparison with schizophrenia.

Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy 2024 Lindsay Smith, Susan L. Rossell, Neil Thomas et al. 4 citations

Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH), or voice-hearing, can be a prominent symptom during fluctuating mood states in bipolar disorder (BD). The current study aimed to: (i) compare AVH-related distress in BD relative to schizophrenia (SCZ), (ii) examine correlations between phenomenology and voice beliefs across each group, and (iii) explore how voice beliefs may uniquely contribute to distress...

Comparison of the Phenomenology of Hallucination and Delusion Characteristics in People Diagnosed With Borderline Personality Disorder and Schizophrenia.

Journal of personality disorders August 1, 2022 Zalie Merrett, David Castle, Neil Thomas et al.

Hallucinations and delusions in borderline personality disorder (BPD) are understudied. The authors explore the phenomenology of multisensory hallucinations and delusions in individuals with BPD and compare them to those in individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD). Clinical psychopathology was also explored. Eighty-nine adults participated and were categorized into four groups:...

Psilocybin-assisted therapy for depression: How do we advance the field?

Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry November 22, 2019 Sally Meikle, Paul Liknaitzky, Susan L. Rossell et al. 19 citations

In the quest for new treatment options for depression, attention is being paid to the potential role of psychedelic drugs. Psilocybin is of particular interest given its mechanism of action, its benefits in early trials and its relatively low side effects burden. This viewpoint outlines a number of key issues that remain to be elucidated about its potential use in the clinical environment,...

Hallucinations Beyond Voices: A Conceptual Review of the Phenomenology of Altered Perception in Psychosis.

Schizophr Bull February 1, 2019 Elizabeth Pienkos, Anne Giersch, Marie Hansen et al. 93 citations

Recent psychiatric research and treatment initiatives have tended to move away from traditional diagnostic categories and have focused instead on transdiagnostic phenomena, such as hallucinations. However, this emphasis on isolated experiences may artificially limit the definition of such phenomena and ignore the rich, complex, and dynamic changes occurring simultaneously in other domains of...