Hearing voices when nobody speaks or seeing objects no one else sees—hallucinations are intriguing phenomena that have puzzled clinicians, researchers, and lay people alike for centuries.
In this book, the authors review the latest research on the cognitive and neural bases of hallucinations and outline their unique neurobiology by drawing on evidence from brain imaging and neurotransmission studies. Hallucination characteristics in different forms of psychosis, as well as other clinical groups and conditions, such as brain damage, Charles Bonnet syndrome, dementia, and chemical substance abuse receive detailed attention.
The authors integrate the wealth of recent findings into a cohesive framework and put forward a comprehensive, multicomponent model of hallucinations. They also discuss the treatment of hallucinations, ranging from pharmacotherapy and cognitive therapy to transcranial magnetic stimulation.
The book includes a comprehensive list of available hallucination questionnaires and scales as a handy clinical assessment resource.
Introduction
- Definition and Conceptual Issues
- The Phenomenology of Hallucinations
- Groups of Hallucinators
- Cognitive–Perceptual Processes: Bottom-Up and Top-Down
- Metacognitive Processes: Reality Monitoring and Metacognitive Beliefs
- Hallucinations and the Brain
- Toward a Comprehensive Model
- Treatment of Hallucinations
Appendix: Assessment Instruments for Hallucinations
References
Author Index
Subject Index
About the Authors
André Aleman, PhD, is a professor of cognitive neuropsychiatry at the University Medical Center, Groningen, the Netherlands. He obtained his MSc (in neuropsychology) and his PhD from the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands. His research foci include the cognitive and neural bases of hallucinations, emotional processing in schizophrenia and depression, and the psychological and neural underpinnings of poor illness awareness in psychosis.
Frank Larøi, PhD, works in the Cognitive Psychopathology Unit at the University of Liège, Belgium. He obtained his BSc from the University of Bath, England; his degree in clinical psychology from the University of Oslo, Norway; and his PhD from the University of Liège. In addition to hallucinations, his research interests include schizophrenia, delusions, cognitive remediation, awareness of illness, and emotional processing in psychopathology.
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