28 October 2025
We would like to increase access to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for people with psychosis who hear voices. We ran a study, led by Mark Hayward, Research and Development Director, called GiVE3, to try to understand whether guided self-help CBT for voices (the GiVE intervention) could be successfully delivered by assistant psychologists, rather than psychologists.
This animation explains the findings from the study:
In comparison to participants in the control group, participants receiving the GiVE intervention did not report meaningful improvements in voice-related distress. However, other meaningful improvements were found, including:
- More progress towards achieving an important personal goal
- Having less negative beliefs about self
- Responding more assertively to voices
- Feeling less paranoid.
These findings suggest that the GiVE intervention delivered by assistant psychologists is not enough, on its own, to support recovery from distressing voices. However, it might help people take positive steps forward that could be built upon with a full course of CBT delivered by a highly trained therapist.
