Kognitive Therapie des chronischen dekompensierten Tinnitus

Chronic earnoises lead to severe emotional disturbances in many individuals. At the moment, it is not possible to treat chronic tinnitus effectively on a medical basis. If the individual suffers strongly, psychological interventions can help reduce the degree of subjective tinnitus annoyance. Psychotherapists are often insecure when treating tinnitus sufferers, because of their tendency to strongly focus on the chronic earnoises. Knowledge about typical dysfunctional beliefs and systematic cognitive mistakes, that hinder the habituation process in tinnitus sufferers, help understand the patient and help find an anchor point for reducing tinnitus annoyance. In this paper, the most important cognitive characteristics of tinnitus sufferers are summarised and the cognitive modification process is systematically described.