Treatment for misophonia

Here are some comments from a spouse living with a misophone. Misophonia is horrible for the individual, but also a big problem for family members. Read More

All noise cancelling headphones are not created equal. If you want to see the real benefit noise cancelling headphones have to offer, you need to try the best. Traditionally, noise cancelling headphones try to eliminate steady background noise such as the air conditioner fan or the roar in an airplane. But with misophonia, you need to have single occurrence sounds blocked. Starting with the Bose QC20, Bose headphones try to block single occurrence sounds, such as speech or chewing. I tried a pair of Beats headphones that were owned by a client, and I could not tell the difference for a single “thud” sound with noise cancelling on and off. I can’t say that all headphones except new Bose and Parrot don’t work for misophonia, but I can say that Bose and Parrot work great. Read More

Sukhbinder Kumar, Ph.D. and his associates at Newcastle University in collaboration with several other researchers recently had their misophonia brain imaging study published in Current Biology. Although this has created new excitement (and great publicity for misophonia awareness) we have been considering his work since he presented at the 2015 Misophonia Association Conference in Chicago. Dr. Kumar observed the brains on individuals being triggered with fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging). fMRI indicates brain activity by measuring blood flow. Where more blood is flowing, there is more neuronal activity. At the Misophonia Conference Dr. Kumar reported the results of his study that compared 22 people with misophonia vs. 20 without misophonia. In response to trigger sounds, the people with misophonia had higher activity in the anterior insula, which is known to be involved in sensing inside the body and external senses (taste, touch, hearing, smell, and sight. Read More

This video was prepared for the Misophonia Association Conference in Las Vegas in February, 2017. It includes a summary of the latest research on misophonia, including the recent brain imaging research and several other studies which are in the process of being published. Read More

Children under 10 are too young for misophonia treatments such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Sequent Repatterning hypnotherapy, or other forms of talk therapy. But there are treatment techniques that can be implemented with these misophonic children that can reduce the actual misophonic response. Read More

Let’s start by defining behavior modification, because this term often brings up negative images and issues of control or coercion. Properly implemented, behavior modification creates a very positive change in all members of the family – It improves both behavior and attitude. It builds cooperation and strengthens relationships. This reduces misophonia issues. Although behavior modification can apply to any individual at any age, I will limit this discussion to behavior modification for children.
Behavior modification is a method of addressing and improving observable child behavior. It is based on the principles of operant conditioning. Essentially it is a program, procedure, or technique to help a child reduce undesirable behaviors and increase more desirable ones. Read More

Misophonia is a difficult condition at any age, but especially for children who have not developed self-regulation and coping skills to handle aversive incidents. For example, a child will cry if they stub their toe, but an adult will not. Every misophonic trigger is an aversive incident, though usually less aversive that stubbing your toe. Still, it is common for children to be very upset and have some form of explosive outburst when triggered, especially in a safe environment, such as at home.There are a limited number of treatments and management techniques for misophonia for children age 9 and under. These are described on MisophoniaInstitute.org and on MisophoniaTreatment.com. Read More

This video was prepared for the Misophonia Association Conference in Las Vegas in February, 2017. It includes a summary of the latest research on misophonia, including the recent brain imaging research and several other studies which are in the process of being published. Read More