Misophonia
Photo credit: Neil. Moralee on Visualhunt.com / CC BY-NC-ND
When I was teaching I could not filter out sounds in the classroom. If I began talking to the class and heard someone whispering, I could not go on. I was devastated if someone tapped a pencil or crinkled a paper. I devised a system of checkmarks for participation that included minuses for talking to others, even whispering. My classroom was unnaturally silent.
If I forgot my Valium, I could not enter the classroom. I still have nightmares, dreams about misplacing my Valium and attempting desperately to get a doctor to write a prescription so I might return to class unnoticed.
Until today, I never heard of anyone with the same condition. So I was simply overjoyed when I read a blog post on Lit Hub by Caoilinn Hughes: “The World is Too Loud: on Being a Writer with Misophonia: Caoilinn Hughes Kindly Asks That You Stop The Loud Chewing.”
That pretty much says it all for me. So fortunate for me, my wife will muffle her chewing if I tell her I hear her crunching salad. In graduate school, my roommate also attempted to accommodate me. The last straw was my asking if he would turn over slowly and gently so I wouldn’t hear his sheet crinkle so loudly. I had to move out to a dorm with my own room. Now, at least, I could have claimed to have misophonia. “Poor guy!”
Hughes has three rules for her university students: “No Phones, No Laptops, No Mastication.” Fortunate for me back when I taught cell phones and laptops were not even a twinkle in an engineer’s eyes. My rule was, “No Gum or Eating.” But I could not rule out pen tapping and paper crinkling. Even for my obedient high school students, this was akin to asking not to crinkle the sheets.
Attention Training Therapy
Adrian Wells in the UK and Les Fehmi in the US both developed a version of Attention Training Therapy, Fehmi around 1975 and Wells around 1990. Wells focused on sounds, Fehmi on the perception of objectless space.
Adrian Wells introduced Attention-Training Therapy (ATT) as a part of his Metacognitive Therapy (MCT). MCT proposes that psychological disorder involves a style or pattern of recurrent, recycling ideation, fixing attention narrowly on worry and problems. MCT focuses on these recurrent patterns of thinking; cognitive therapy focuses on the thoughts.
ATT involves attending to sounds individually and in combinations. After practicing a few times with an mp3, you practice on your own in natural soundscapes, (such as the classroom if you are teaching as I was), or in the office cubical if that is where you work. You practice shifting from sound to sound, two or more sounds at once, and isolating one sound from others.
ATT interrupts excessive and inflexible self-focused attention. It strengthens control of attention to help regain flexible control over thinking patterns or styles. Wells considers ATT physical fitness of the mind.
On Wells’ 13 minute mp3 or you can use my video in my blog at joeldames.com) you practice the three basic components:
- Selective attention, 2. Rapid attention switching, and 3. Divided attention.
You move from an internal to an external outward-centered focus. Well’s simple scale measures this internal to external shift away from self-focus and ruminating.
Adrian Wells developed a 7-point rating scale to use as an index of the effectiveness of ATT. The Scale is a line with markings from -3 to +3. Wells asks, “At this moment in time how much is your attention focused on yourself or on your external environment? Please indicate by giving me a number on the scale.”
–3 –2 –1 0 +1 +2 +3
Entirely externally focused Equal amounts Entirely Self-Focused
You rate yourself before you practice ATT and then rate yourself again after each session to check how far you move from internal to external focus.
Open Focus
Open Focus is a mix of narrow and diffuse focus. If you are narrowly focused on a book you are reading, in open focus mode you take in the space all around. If you are engrossed in an internal dialog, you open up and experience the world all around. You alternate attention between narrow and diffuse focus, sometimes paying attention simultaneously in both modes.
Too late for me (I’m 80 years old and retired) to try Attention Training or Open Focus in the classroom. Perhaps Hughes might be willing to give it a go and share the results on my blog.
Self-help books that help:
Total Self-Renewal through Attention Therapies and Open Focus
The Open-Focus Brain: Harnessing the Power of Attention to Heal Mind and Body
