AMETHYST therapies
Standard Therapy
People receiving the standard therapy will receive a therapy based mainly on discussion about the voices you experience.
The first appointment will involve developing a detailed understanding of your experience of hearing voices.
The following 6 sessions will then involve the therapist helping you identify the ways in which the experience bothers or distresses you, and finding the best possible ways of coping with and responding to the experience.
The therapist will help you plan how best to respond when you hear voices between appointments.
This therapy is called cognitive behavioural therapy for voices, is established as effective, and is current best practice for helping people who hear voices according to guidelines written by international experts.
AVATAR therapy
Avatar Therapy is very similar to standard therapy, but the process of therapy is aided by the use of a computer-generated avatar to represent one of the voices that you hear.
The use of the avatar creates a more vivid experience during therapy, which allows you to role play different methods of coping and responding with the support and guidance of your therapist.
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Although avatar therapy is an experimental treatment, it has been evaluated in several research studies with several hundred people. The results so far show that it is effective, and participants who have received it report being satisfied with the therapy. It shows promise in being more effective than standard treatment, but this is not yet known. This is what the AMETHYST study wants to find out.