![]() For the whole sample, the mean age at onset was 56 years, ranging from 18 to 98, with women comprising 65.4% of the group. Golden and Josephs 6 using Mayo Clinic medical records, subcategorized 393 subjects with musical hallucinations, based on co-morbid conditions. The prevalence rate of musical hallucinations in one series of general psychiatric admissions was reported as rare, 0.16% 5, but frequently associated with other psychopathology. My aim was to determine whether findings in these overlapping fields could suggest therapeutic strategies that might prove useful in the treatment of hallucinations in general. Motivated by the distress experienced by the patient described above, I undertook a review of the literature on ‘musical hallucinations’ and ‘earworms,’ conducting a search of PubMed and Google Scholar using those search terms. Earworms, although they are harmless and classified as pseudohallucinations, overlap phenomenologically with musical hallucinations, which, like auditory hallucinations in general, can be symptoms of psychopathological conditions 3, 4, 5, 6. The patient was experiencing earworms, the occurrence of an unbidden tune that sounds in the head over and over, perversely more persistent the more one attempts to block it out 2. ![]() She could not rid herself of the music in her head, and found the situation unbearable because it reminded her of the time, just before her first hospitalization, when her head was filled with the sound of her best friend’s voice. The choir music from weekly practices and from Sunday services had filled her head, she said. Within three months, however, she left the choir, and the church. To her delight, she was accepted into the choir, made new friends at church, and began attending regularly. The patient had always sung in church choirs when younger and had a fine voice and a love of music. To expand her social contacts and further her recovery, she was encouraged by clinic staff to join the choir of a local church. ![]() A 45-year-old patient with a history of psychosis was in supportive treatment, doing well symptomatically, but leading a relatively routine, uneventful life. ![]()
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