LANGUAGE THERAPY FOR SCHIZOPHRENIC-PATIENTS WITH PERSISTENT VOICES

One of us has hypothesised that the 'voices' of schizophrenic patients reflect altered preconscious planning of discourse that can produce i nvoluntary 'inner speech' as well as incoherent overt speech. Some sch izophrenic patients reporting voices do not, however, have disorganise d speech. We hypothesise that these 'counterexample' patients compensa te for impairments of discourse planning by reducing language complexi ty and relying on highly rehearsed topics. A 'language therapy' design ed to challenge and enhance novel discourse planning was administered to four such patients; three had significant albeit temporary reductio ns in the severity of their voices. These clinical findings provide fu rther evidence that alterations of discourse planning may underlie hal lucinated voices.