I looked at an article because I thought it sounded a bit weird, but actually I ended up being impressed and thoughtful. It talks about voice-simulated-experience (VSE) and to read the abstract, you would think that nurses had listened to Stephen Hawking-like voice simulators talking about patients’ problems and it improved their intellectual empathy with patients. Unlikely, I thought, so I read the article.

What they did was find out from mentally ill people who heard voices and auditory hallucinations what it was like, and reproduced this experience on an audiotape. Then they asked the trainee nurses to do various ordinary things while listening to the tape. The nurses found out what it was like trying to live your life when voices were whispering to you or auditory hallucinations were going on in the background. They found it a good experience of what it was like to be mentally ill, and it increased the nurses’ determination not to stigmatise or reject patients’ experiences.

This set me to wondering about the importance of really listening to patients’ experiences, trying to understand those experiences and reproduce them, not only in written and spoken stories but in ways similar to what these authors did. It would be a powerful, real learning device, and particularly responsive to patients’ feelings about their life experience.

And a salutory lesson in reading the actual article when presented with an abstract and in writing abstracts that explain clearly what you’re talking about to people who don’t share your assumptions.

Dearing, K. S. & Steadman, S. (2009) Enhancing Intellectual Empathy: The Lived Experience of Voice Simulation Perspectives in Psychiatric Care. Jul 2009; 45(3): 173-82.