Encephale
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Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is a third generation of cognitive-behavioral therapies. The point is to help patients to improve their psychological flexibility in order to accept unavoidable private events. Thus, they have the opportunity to invest energy in committed actions rather than struggle against their psychological events. ⋯ The loss of psychological flexibility is the origin of the pain caused by psychiatric disorders and chronic diseases. This is why other studies are needed to investigate ACT's full potential.
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Beliefs about voices and reactions to voices have been proposed as important variables influencing the course of depression in schizophrenia. Consequences of auditory hallucinations are different according to identity, goals, omnipotence, omniscience, and meanings attributed to voices by the client. Ten to 15 % of the general population experience auditory hallucinations during lifetime without any distress or need for medical care. In addition, neither frequency of voices, nor their topography, influence the emotional consequences of auditory hallucinations experiences, but the relationships to voices. The Revised Belief about Voices Questionnaire analyzes voices along 5 dimensions: malevolence, benevolence, omnipotence, resistance, and engagement. Malevolent voices are related to depression, whereas benevolent voices engender more positive emotions. Subjects usually engage with benevolent voices, and resist to malevolent voices. But resistance strategies are barely efficient and often backfire. Patients resisting to their voices consider them more malevolent and present with more depressive symptoms. This research aims at studying the influence of resistance to auditory hallucinations on depression in a group of patients suffering from schizophrenia and experiencing auditory hallucinations, using the Revised Beliefs About Voices Questionnaire (BAVQ-R). It also provides a study of the psychometrics properties of the French language version of the BAVQ-R. ⋯ Emotional resistance to auditory hallucinations constitutes the most important variable influencing depression in schizophrenia comparing to what the voices say or are supposed to know, their malevolence or benevolence. Demonstration of the influence of resistance to voices on depression would help the development of new therapeutic practices.