Noise therapy?

February 26, 2012 11:52 PM

When a person with schizophrenia plays several different radios tuned to different stations at once, as Roky Erickson did in the documentary about him, how does it affect them? Is it soothing? Independent of how a person with schizophrenia may feel about this practice, is it considered helpful or therapeutic by medical professionals? Finally, how common is this practice among people with schizophrenia?
posted by ignignokt to Health & Fitness (6 answers total)

Best answer: As far as I know, and I've worked with a lot of people with schizophrenia, this is totally idiosyncratic to Roky Erickson. There is research that suggests that people with schizophrenia have trouble distinguishing between signal and noise; and there is some experimental work using stochastic resonance therapy to treat some mental disorders. However, this isn't any sort of generally accepted therapeutic practice. It isn't commonly prescribed in either the inpatient or outpatient settings.
posted by OmieWise at 5:11 AM on February 27, 2012 [2 favorites]

Best answer: It is often said in my field (disability rights, reasonable accommodation, etc.) that wearing headphones and listening to music or white noise (but not different stations as far as I know) can be helpful for persons who hear voices or who are otherwise distracted due to a mental health condition. Which suggests that counter-noise (just made that phrase up) is a common practice.
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 9:26 AM on February 27, 2012

Best answer: It could be for relaxation. I've noticed that when I read in the bath while the radio is on, the cognitive competition in my brain seems to wear it out and put me to sleep.
posted by rhizome at 12:10 PM on February 27, 2012

Best answer: I am not a psychiatrist. I have worked with the mentally ill in a psychiatric hospital/group-home setting, though.

Some of the patients were doing it for stimulation, but the patients who come to mind were doing it to drown out the voices they heard.

I can think of three people offhand who were on their way to being professionals or successful (college, good grades, &c...) before they got knocked down by schizophrenia. One of them always played earphones because it drowned out the horrible whispers. She couldn't bring herself to really recognize the illness, as only crazy folks hear voices... so for her it was drowning out the voice of God. No joke. She was religious beforehand and this is what made the most sense to her. One of them blared music from his room because then he didn't have to deal with the very not-whispering not-God voices he was hearing, and the last one sang sang sang all the time, but for the same reason.
posted by Tchad at 12:46 PM on February 27, 2012

Best answer: I have an aunt who has schizophrenia and I've never, ever seen her do this. In fact, that would, I think, drive her absolutely bonkers. She listens to one radio at a time, and would be way overstimulated by hearing all of that noise at once. I think this quirk is particular to the documentary you speak of.

On the other hand, my aunt is now 72 years old, so she's not of the generation to go walking around with an Ipod or anything, just a stationary old boombox for her.
posted by Sal and Richard at 1:52 PM on February 27, 2012

Response by poster: So, I guess this is not a universal effect of schizophrenia. In fact, I can now see how it might be soothing to anyone, in certain circumstances.

Thanks for sharing your experiences, guys.
posted by ignignokt at 3:54 PM on February 27, 2012