Trauma and hallucinations across the sensory modalities: the importance of considering experiences in childhood and adulthood

It is widely acknowledged that trauma is related to auditory hallucinations in psychotic disorders. Yet, this relationship has not been well explored in hallucinations across other sensory modalities. The current study investigated whether hallucination modality groups (auditory, visual, olfactory, tactile, multisensory) were significantly related to physical, sexual, or emotional trauma. The age at which the trauma was experienced (16 or below, 17 and above) was also considered. Multivariate linear models, analysis of variance, and regression analyses for sixty-six participants with a psychotic disorder sought to determine whether trauma was related to hallucinations. Specifically, we used a modified version of the Life-Stressor Checklist Revised and the Multimodal Hallucinations Schedule (MHS) to identify whether the number of trauma items endorsed, or severity of trauma, at different developmental stages were significantly associated with the severity of lifetime hallucinations across different modalities, and the number of hallucination modalities experienced. We found that the severity of visual hallucinations was significantly associated with a history of sexual trauma. Notably, we revealed that experiencing sexual trauma in both childhood and adulthood was related to an increased self-reported severity of the trauma, and possibly the severity of visual hallucinations. These preliminary findings suggest that type of trauma may be uniquely related to specific hallucination modality and severity. Further, it is important to consider adulthood traumas as well as those occurring in childhood. These results have implications for clinical assessment and intervention.