The ECHO Study: Compassion-focused Therapy for Young Voice Hearers and Their Caregivers

The ECHO Study: Compassion-focused Therapy for Young Voice Hearers and Their Caregivers

In this project, a 10-session treatment program was developed aimed at young people who experience voice hearing. The treatment has potential to easily be implemented in everyday clinical practice in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and eventually in Educational Psychological Counselling (PPR) and the newly established STIME services (low-threshold municipal treatment offers for children and young people).

As part of the treatment, the young person's caregivers are involved. This means a high degree of involvement from adults who know the young person well and are part of their daily life.

In addition to traditional Compassion-focuced therapy (CFT), the treatment is expanded with an intervention where an audio file is recorded with content corresponding to the adolescent's voice hearing. The parents are invited to listen to the audio file while participating in a therapy session. This will help improve the caregivers understanding of the young person's experiences and challenges.

Inclusion Criteria:

• The participants should have been referred to a child and adolescent psychiatric hospital in Denmark .
• The participants have heard voices within the last 2 weeks.
• The participant can hear the content of the voices. The content takes the form of spoken works.
• A caregiver who can participate in 5 sessions

Exclusion Criteria:

• Participants has an estimated IQ under 70
• Participants who don't speak and understand Danish,
• Current drug misuse / abuse (during sessions)
• Brain injury or neurological disorder e.g. severe epilepsy
• Impaired vision or hearing to a degree that makes participation in therapy under normal conditions impossible.