Leicester
psychologists have, for the first time, created body-maps of the sensations
which arise during hallucinations in people experiencing psychosis. Although
there was great variation in the localisation of feelings across participants,
for each individual feelings were recurrently concentrated in particular body
areas. Areas of concentration often held repeated sources of feelings like
pain, heat, or tension. Psychosis is a term which describes experiences where
an individual may have difficulties in determining what is real and what is not
real. Research indicates psychosis is associated with experiencing trauma,
adverse life events, and stress. People may be given a diagnosis such as
schizophrenia. Experiences of perceiving or believing things which those around
us do not can also occur in physical health conditions such as brain tumours or
acute infections.
Psychosis can
have serious adverse outcomes on individuals including distress, lack of sleep,
social withdrawal, lack of motivation, difficulties in carrying out daily
activities, experiences of discrimination and lost opportunities. Participants were
asked by the research team to prospectively document the feeling and senses of
hallucinations for one week prior to an interview. Novel visual diary methods
involving drawing, writing and body-mapping generated 42 MUSE maps, which set
out the specific areas across the body and beyond where participants
experienced sensations during hallucinations. The study found that
hallucinations were characterised by numerous feelings arising at once, often
including multisensory, emotional, and embodied features. Researchers suggest
further uptake of visual, ecological and prospective methods may enhance understandings
of lived experiences of hallucinations.
More
information:
https://www.technologynetworks.com/neuroscience/news/researchers-create-the-first-body-map-of-a-psychotic-hallucination-355170
