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today. Hello

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everyone and

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welcome to

0:24

Talk Nerdy.

0:30

Today is Monday, November 27th, 2023.

0:35

And I'm the host of the show,

0:37

Cara Santa Maria. And as always, before

0:39

we dive into this week's show, I

0:41

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Hagman. All right, let's dive

1:57

into the show. to

2:00

chat with Dr. Jane Gregory.

2:03

She is a clinical psychologist

2:05

doing research at the University

2:07

of Oxford on mesophonia and

2:10

we're going to dive into

2:12

what mesophonia is, what her

2:14

own experience is with the

2:16

phenomenon, and of course her

2:18

brand new book which is

2:21

available right now called

2:23

Sounds Like Mesophonia. How

2:25

to Stop Small Noises

2:27

from Causing Extreme

2:29

Reactions. So without

2:31

any further ado, here she is,

2:34

Dr. Jane Gregory. Jane,

2:38

thank you so much for joining me today.

2:40

Thank you for having me today.

2:42

I am excited to

2:44

talk about your new book Sounds

2:46

Like Mesophonia. How to Stop Small

2:48

Noises from Causing Extreme Reactions. And

2:50

you of course are somebody who,

2:52

I mean as a psychologist who

2:54

studies mesophonia, you know it inside

2:56

and out from the sort of

2:58

technical side, but you also

3:00

have a very kind of subjective

3:03

and personal experience with this phenomenon. So

3:05

let's just get into it. Let's just start right

3:07

at the top with like the definition of this

3:09

word because I think a lot of people know

3:11

exactly what we're talking about but they didn't know that this

3:13

is what it's called. Yeah,

3:16

I think that's right. That's

3:18

one of the things that every time I talk about this,

3:20

somebody in the room says, oh

3:23

my goodness, that's exactly

3:25

what I have. Or that's

3:28

why my dad made us eat crisps

3:30

upstairs. Or yeah, why my brother used

3:32

to shout at me at the dinner

3:34

table. So I think a lot of people

3:37

either can relate to the

3:39

experience or can recognize

3:41

somebody in their life who

3:43

maybe experiences it. Right.

3:46

So tell us about like

3:48

maybe the technical or the

3:50

clinical definition because this is

3:53

not listed in the DSM,

3:55

right? But it's clearly an

3:57

understood and established phenomenon. I'm

4:00

not sure if we would go so far as

4:02

to say understood and established quite yet. It's

4:05

something we've heard of. Yeah,

4:07

well, it's a thing that you and I have

4:09

heard of, and some people have heard of, but

4:12

there are still a lot of people who show

4:14

up at the healthcare provider and are told, I

4:16

don't think that's a thing or I've never heard of

4:19

that at all. That sounds like it's just part of

4:21

your anxiety. So actually, there

4:23

are still a lot of people who haven't heard

4:25

of it. And just two years ago, we did

4:28

a survey in the UK asking, in

4:31

a general population sample, how many people were familiar

4:33

with the term, and only

4:35

14% of people heard the term.

4:38

And a similar study was done in the US, and I

4:40

think it was even less. It was maybe 11% in the

4:42

US. And

4:45

I think it's a little bit more well known now

4:47

because there's been a bit more media coverage recently,

4:50

but it's still not very well

4:52

known and not very well understood. Oh

4:55

yeah, that really shows my bias.

4:57

Wow. Yeah, well, that's the thing. I

5:00

just assume that everybody knows what it is.

5:03

And I do a little bit of nerdy comedy,

5:05

and so I do these talks. And

5:08

at the start, it was part of the

5:10

performance, I always say, give us a cheer

5:12

if you've heard of misophonia. And it's been

5:14

so wonderful to see the proportion of the

5:17

audience change in terms of,

5:19

as the awareness of misophonia increases. So

5:21

last night, nearly everyone in the room

5:23

had heard of misophonia, but just a

5:25

few years ago, it was just a

5:27

handful of people. So it is

5:30

getting more well known, but yeah,

5:32

still not common

5:34

lexicon, is that what I heard?

5:39

Absolutely. Well, and speaking of lexicon,

5:41

I'm curious, the term itself, misophonia, where does it

5:43

come from? What are the component parts

5:46

of it from an etymology perspective? It

5:49

was named by this husband

5:51

and wife research team, the

5:53

Jastrobovs, Margaret and Pavel

5:55

Jastrobov, who they basically got a

5:58

linguist to help them come up with a language. the

6:00

term for these people that they'd been seeing

6:02

who had a really specific

6:05

reaction to really specific sounds.

6:08

So they brought together a whole lot of

6:10

root parts of words and

6:13

decided on miso, which is

6:15

hatred, and phonia,

6:17

which is sound. It

6:20

literally translates to hatred of sounds, but

6:22

they have very clearly said since then

6:24

that they didn't intend for it to

6:27

be understood literally. They just wanted

6:29

a catchy word, and apparently

6:32

one of them just also really

6:34

liked miso soup, and so that

6:36

influenced their decision, which I think

6:39

is absolutely adorable. That's

6:41

really funny. And

6:43

so the name itself can

6:45

cause problems because it often gets

6:47

reported as misophonia, hatred of sounds,

6:49

but actually a lot of people

6:51

with misophonia love sounds, and

6:53

the difference between how they feel when they're

6:56

listening to other sounds and how they feel

6:58

when they're listening to specific trigger sounds is

7:01

so vast that that's part of the problem.

7:04

Well, you know, it sort of strikes me.

7:06

I'm about to get a little bit meta, like really, really

7:08

early on the show, but it sort of strikes

7:11

me as the way that

7:13

I often conceptualize kind of

7:15

most, I guess, psychological disorders,

7:18

dysfunction, pathologies. I

7:20

hate all those terms because I'm very existential in

7:22

my view. But I think of

7:24

even the things that we think of as the

7:27

most clinically relevant or

7:29

clinically difficult, like schizophrenia,

7:32

bipolar disorder, kind of these what

7:34

we think of severe mental illnesses.

7:37

When you look at the symptoms,

7:39

it's a spectrum. Everybody

7:41

has had a hallucination at some point in their life. Everybody

7:44

has experienced what it's like to

7:47

struggle with confusion or has experienced

7:49

some amount of sadness or some

7:51

amount of anxiety. And there becomes

7:53

a point where it's clinically relevant

7:55

because it interferes in your

7:57

life in a way that makes it difficult to complete.

8:00

complete your tasks or to find joy

8:02

or whatever the case may be. And

8:05

I don't see misophonia as any

8:07

different. Most everyone I know can

8:09

pinpoint some triggering sound for

8:12

them, but for some people

8:14

it's much more debilitating than

8:16

others. Absolutely. I

8:18

think that's right. Like most people

8:20

can relate to not liking

8:22

a particular sound or having an extreme

8:25

reaction to a particular sound or

8:27

a disproportionate reaction compared to other

8:30

equally annoying sounds. But

8:32

it's interesting that you used schizophrenia and

8:34

bipolar disorder as examples of a continuum

8:36

because those are two disorders that I

8:38

think of as being much more

8:41

categorical. Yeah, the most extreme. And the other

8:43

side like to pick them. Yeah. Because I

8:45

can even pinpoint, usually even with those, I

8:47

can pinpoint some, I don't know, example

8:50

that we can relate to. Yeah.

8:52

Although like if you look at the

8:54

diagnostic criteria for bipolar, like you literally

8:57

have to have had a manic episode

8:59

to meet the criteria and most people

9:01

haven't experienced a manic episode. And

9:04

with misophonia, we're

9:06

not sure yet, like it's obviously on a

9:08

continuum that people can relate to

9:10

the experiences. But also when you

9:12

sort of look at it in a statistical way, it

9:14

kind of clusters in a way that suggests that there

9:16

are distinct categories. And one

9:19

is like a clinical category of

9:21

misophonia and one is more of

9:23

a subclinical category of misophonia. And

9:26

so we think it's sort of at the more extreme end. If

9:28

we're to, in a clinical

9:30

setting, if we're looking to make

9:32

a diagnosis for treatment purposes, we'd

9:35

probably say disorder level misophonia.

9:37

And that is the way we would

9:39

distinguish clinical from subclinical would be about

9:41

the impact that it has. So as you

9:44

were saying, the point where it stops people from living

9:46

their lives, where it causes day to

9:48

day distress and significant

9:50

impacts on their lives.

9:53

And then we've got this much bigger

9:55

category of subclinical misophonia, which I think

9:57

of it more as a phenomenon than

9:59

a disorder, which

10:01

is the phenomenon that your brain

10:04

just processes sounds a little bit differently

10:06

and has trouble filtering out certain sounds

10:08

and maybe over attaches

10:10

meaning to sounds and then can't

10:12

unattach that meaning to sounds. Oh,

10:15

interesting. So, it's a little

10:18

bit beyond or I guess we

10:20

should say there's a little bit more kind of

10:23

a psychological phenomenon than just the classic.

10:25

I think sometimes you hear people say,

10:27

oh, it's like nails on a chalkboard.

10:29

Like that's the go-to, right? It's like

10:31

nails on a chalkboard, but it's deeper

10:33

than that. It's not just a grating

10:35

sound because there are some, I think,

10:37

objectively grating sounds to people, right? Yes,

10:40

absolutely. And nails on a chalkboard is

10:42

a really great example of what we

10:44

call a rough sound. So, the acoustic

10:46

properties of that sound you

10:48

can't ignore and that's a feature

10:50

of the sound and there are some things

10:52

in nature that you're not supposed to ignore.

10:55

So, there's nails on a chalkboard sort of

10:57

sounds a bit like a screeching monkey that

10:59

is designed to get your attention

11:01

or the roar of a lion

11:04

is designed not

11:06

to be ignored. A crying baby is

11:08

designed not to be ignored, designed in

11:10

nature terms. But then we also

11:12

have human-made products that are

11:14

also designed not to be ignored. So,

11:17

alarms, sirens, like

11:19

notification sounds, they're

11:21

meant to be attention-grabbing and some

11:24

of them are meant to be that you don't

11:26

get used to them. So, you're not supposed to

11:28

get used to the sound of a siren.

11:30

So, what happens with misophonia is that other

11:32

sounds that most people, they

11:35

might not like, but they wouldn't

11:37

have an extreme reaction to them. It's like your

11:39

brain treats that sound as if it's a

11:42

siren, as if it's not supposed to be ignored, as

11:44

if it's a sign of danger or

11:46

harm in some way. Yeah.

11:48

So, I'm going to self-diagnose for a second. This

11:50

is so great. Go ahead. So,

11:53

I have two and I... So, it's

11:56

people with misophonia are self-diagnosed. Yeah, yeah.

11:58

It's still relatively unknown. Well,

12:00

and it's funny because when I work

12:02

with clients who are neurodivergent, it's not

12:05

uncommon for there to be some kind

12:07

of sensory things. And I remember working

12:09

with a younger male patient

12:11

and kind of discussing misophonia with him

12:13

and this concept of like the sounds

12:15

that are really difficult

12:17

and, you know, like,

12:20

what do you do when you hear these

12:22

things and how do you work around it?

12:24

And so obviously to normalize the experience, I

12:26

told him about my own and we were sort

12:28

of like laughing about how we had

12:30

some in common and some very different. But

12:33

I have two very specific triggers. They are

12:35

metal utensils in a metal

12:38

pot. I cannot

12:40

be in the room if somebody

12:42

is stirring something in a metal

12:44

pot with a metal spoon. It's so overwhelming to

12:46

me that I have to leave the room. I

12:49

don't vomit. I don't, you know, like, but I

12:51

get the whole hair stand up on the back of

12:53

my neck and like that shutter stance. Like

12:55

I can't help a shutter. And then the other

12:57

is a rake on the sidewalk. Like when somebody's

13:00

going outside and they drag that on the side,

13:02

I cannot stand that sound. And

13:04

if you sort of look at the acoustic properties

13:06

of those two sounds, it's really, really similar.

13:08

There is like literally a grating kind

13:10

of sound to both of those. And

13:13

so when you hear those sounds, what

13:16

do you experience? So

13:19

it's almost like I recoil

13:21

a little. It doesn't make me nauseated.

13:24

I don't feel ill. And

13:27

I don't necessarily have a

13:29

strong emotional reaction. Like it doesn't make

13:31

me angry, but I recoil. So

13:35

I find myself, yeah, I shudder and

13:37

I have to cover my ears or

13:40

get out of the room very quickly. I'm

13:43

very, very aversive. Like I have

13:45

a fight or flight. Well, I just have a flight. A

13:47

flight. Just a flight. Just

13:49

a flight. Yeah. Yeah.

13:53

So that urge to escape the

13:55

sound, I think a lot of people

13:57

with misophonia can relate to that experience.

14:00

feeling like you have to get away

14:02

from the sound. And that's one of

14:04

the things in some of the research

14:06

that I do. So I collaborate with Celia

14:08

Vitaratu, who's at King's College London. She

14:11

is a statistician specializing in

14:13

psychometrics, which is basically for listeners

14:15

when you try to measure concepts

14:17

that can't be directly observed. So you

14:20

might measure symptoms of depression, for

14:22

example, through questionnaires. When you use

14:25

special statistical, very fancy maths to

14:27

see how things cluster together to then

14:31

be able to measure a concept that you

14:33

can't directly observe. So we've worked together to

14:35

create this questionnaire. And within

14:38

that process, we discovered there are these

14:40

five aspects of misophonia that kind of

14:42

work together. And the key one of

14:44

the key ones that you

14:47

can use to sort of distinguish people with

14:49

and without misophonia is this what we call

14:51

an emotional threat, which is this feeling of

14:53

feeling trapped or helpless, like you

14:55

have to get away from the sound like something

14:57

horrible would happen if you

15:00

didn't get away from the sound. Yeah,

15:02

it's so interesting. And I obviously I

15:04

am relatively high functioning and I have

15:06

a lot of coping skills and adaptive

15:08

behaviors. But I if I

15:10

cannot escape because it would not be

15:12

socially acceptable or you know, for whatever

15:14

reason, it doesn't seem like a viable

15:16

option. I'll plug my ears. If I

15:18

can't plug my ears, I have learned to

15:21

do this. It's almost like the Valsalva maneuver

15:23

where you sort of bear down and it

15:25

causes white noise in your head. I

15:27

don't know if you know what I'm talking about. I know

15:29

exactly what you're talking about, but I can't do

15:31

it. So I like people describe it to me,

15:33

but I can't make that I can't create that

15:36

sound in my ears. Interesting. So

15:38

I know that there are people who use that. Yeah,

15:41

I'm glad you've had other research subjects or

15:43

people you've talked to who are like, oh,

15:45

yeah, I basically drown it out inside my

15:47

own head. Yeah. And

15:50

I think that you know, a part of what

15:52

you are saying there about like, if it's

15:54

not socially acceptable to get away, I think

15:56

that's also part of this trapped feeling. And

15:59

sometimes it's. Right now in

16:01

the moment it wouldn't be socially acceptable

16:03

but sometimes it's that those sounds are

16:05

sort of connecting back to Experiences from

16:08

childhood where you couldn't leave the situation

16:10

and so you still feel trapped But

16:13

it's because it's tapping into these memories of like

16:15

sitting at the family dinner table where you would

16:17

be told off if you left The table you'd

16:19

be told off if you got angry at someone

16:21

so you had to suppress your feelings you

16:24

had to stay in the situation you were

16:26

literally trapped there and So

16:29

then when you hear those same sounds as an

16:31

adult it it takes you

16:33

back without not consciously You don't realize that it's

16:35

going back to these specific memories, but sometimes those

16:39

Early experiences from childhood are shaping what

16:41

you feel in the moment because that's

16:43

what you've experienced when you were younger

16:46

That's fascinating. Is that sort of the

16:48

dominant? I guess we could say

16:50

theory as to why misophonia exists or do we

16:52

think that it I mean I'm sure

16:54

it's biopsychosocial and it's you know nature nurture and

16:56

all the things mixed together, but I'm curious What

16:59

are some of those kind of? those

17:02

Explanatory theories of why people develop

17:04

it other than maybe linking to

17:06

an early childhood experience that felt

17:08

quite noxious or dangerous There

17:11

there are quite a few theories We

17:13

really don't have enough

17:15

research yet to be able to really

17:17

strongly Connect with one

17:20

particular theory we know from studies

17:22

of the brain that there's something different happening

17:24

There are different connections happening in the brain and

17:27

people with misophonia Compared to

17:29

people with atmosphonia when they hear these certain

17:31

sounds and those differences are only

17:34

there for these specific kinds of

17:36

sounds these like eating and breathing

17:39

sounds and not for Generally

17:41

a verse sounds so if it was

17:43

just something that everyone finds averse

17:47

the the brain patterns don't aren't different,

17:50

but when You listen

17:52

to the that kind of trigger sound then

17:54

there's a different process happening in the brain

17:56

And there's sort of some hyper connectivity between

18:00

auditory processing, emotion processing, fight

18:02

and flight, like amygdala, kind

18:05

of part of the brain. There's

18:07

one theory that it's also connected to

18:09

the motor area of the brain, which

18:11

one theory is that that's related to

18:13

sort of an

18:15

unconscious mimicking process, almost like you're

18:17

trying to, your body's trying

18:20

to copy what the other person is doing,

18:22

so your jaw starts to

18:24

tense up because it's activating part of

18:26

your jaw and that the theory

18:28

is that that's one of the reasons why it feels

18:30

so intrusive because it's actually activating something

18:32

in your body. And that's just

18:35

a theory at this stage, but as you can see,

18:37

there's quite a wide range. Yeah,

18:42

lots of ideas that I

18:44

guess either are it actively

18:47

being tested or people are trying to

18:49

figure out how to test these kinds of hypotheses

18:51

and some of them may never be testable,

18:53

but it's, you know, I'm curious, is there

18:55

sort of the opposite end of the spectrum? Like

18:57

I was just thinking how nails on a

18:59

chalkboard is a sort of universal phenomenon that

19:01

like most people agree, that's not a pleasant, or

19:04

if somebody's eating, we've all had this experience

19:06

here at the dinner table and somebody squeaks

19:09

their knife across their plate and it's very

19:11

similar to nails on a chalkboard and

19:13

the whole table's like, ah, you know, and

19:15

it makes me wonder, are there people who are

19:17

just like completely immune to it? Like I think

19:20

about like the Alex Honnold's, right? The

19:22

famous rock climber, who's amygdala is like

19:24

very quiet. Yeah, so they

19:26

hear something, they're like, whatever, doesn't bother

19:28

me. Yeah, yeah. So

19:30

I'm sure that there are people at

19:33

that end where the reactivity in the

19:35

brain is just not that

19:37

strong and I'm sure it's all

19:39

on a spectrum. And

19:42

if we think about that idea of it

19:44

not just being the sort

19:46

of emotional reaction to sound, but also the meaning

19:50

placed on the sound. So what you

19:54

believe the sound is, who is making

19:56

the sound, what context they're making it

19:58

in, so the exact same thing. sound,

20:01

like literally the same audio can

20:03

cause a different reaction if the

20:06

person thinks that somebody eating with their mouth

20:08

open compared to if they think that it's

20:10

like a puppy, adorable puppy eating its food.

20:14

And so I've got a friend who

20:17

didn't believe this idea that there

20:20

was anything other than just the reactions.

20:22

There's like, like, this

20:24

is like, this is not interpretation

20:27

is the wrong word, but there's

20:29

another process that's going on there about what

20:32

the sound means. And

20:35

she one day, like

20:38

just felt this instant surge of anger because

20:40

she heard her husband eating really loudly, whipped

20:43

her head around and it was her

20:45

baby eating and the reaction disappeared. And

20:48

she came to me that I could tell what her name is

20:50

just go, you

20:53

see it? It's funny. Like it's

20:55

become a social media phenomenon where

20:57

the same discussed reaction that we

20:59

might have, like you said,

21:01

to watching a movie where somebody's eating

21:03

and talking with their mouth open, but

21:06

on, let's say Instagram or TikTok, it's

21:08

like a puppy eating and they call

21:10

it ASMR. And people are like, this

21:12

is so calming and relaxing. And you're

21:14

like, wow, because it's the same sound.

21:16

Absolutely. And they've done it with different

21:18

sensory stuff as well. So someone was

21:20

telling the other day about a study

21:22

where they gave people a smell and

21:25

one group, they told them it was dirty socks.

21:27

And the other one, they told them that it

21:30

was blue cheese and their

21:32

reaction was completely different to that spell,

21:34

depending on what they were told was

21:37

creating that smell and even

21:39

nails on a chalkboard. I think there's been

21:41

research in that as well where they presented

21:44

the sound. And I can't remember what

21:47

the alternative explanation was for the sound, but

21:49

it did have a less intense reaction when

21:51

you believed that it was something else creating

21:54

the sound. So there is

21:56

an interpretation process happening. And

21:58

there was a really great study. Concordia

22:01

University, Maria

22:03

Nixova did a study where they

22:06

masked the sound and then slowly

22:11

covered the sound from another sound to

22:14

test whether people with high and low

22:16

misophonia would detect the sound at different

22:18

times because the theory was that people with

22:21

misophonia are like, will hear the sound sooner.

22:23

And actually they didn't. It was exactly the

22:25

same. And when

22:28

people with misophonia had the more intense reaction

22:30

to the sound compared to me with atmosphonia,

22:32

it was only once they'd identified what the

22:35

sound was. So it wasn't just the acoustic

22:37

properties of the sound. It was, I know

22:39

what that is and I don't like it.

22:41

And that's when the reaction starts. To

22:45

me, it's just like, it's just another sort of

22:47

tick mark in the column for

22:49

constructivism, just this idea that like,

22:52

yes, there is objective reality, but

22:54

we cannot observe it with the

22:56

sound without our lens. And our

22:58

lens adds so much meaning

23:00

to everything. All of the

23:02

experiences we had, all of our neurological

23:05

functioning, like whether it's something

23:07

really pure, we think of as pure, like

23:09

the flavor of a food or the smell

23:11

of a molecule or the

23:14

literal compression of sound waves and

23:16

our tiny little cells in our

23:18

ears, the little hairs

23:20

being affected by them. We

23:23

put meaning and interpretation on that in

23:25

a major way. Absolutely. And I

23:27

think it sort of gets a bit lost because especially

23:30

like I worked from a CBT perspective and

23:32

often CBT gets talked about, it's like your interpretation

23:34

as if it's this kind of conscious verbal

23:37

thought going through your head. Like, oh, I know what I need

23:39

to make. Yeah. And actually

23:41

what I'm interested in is like what

23:44

it feels like in your body and how

23:46

you interpret what it feels like in your

23:48

body. So if you feel disgusted by it,

23:50

then you might think, oh, that's a disgusting

23:52

thing to do because I feel disgusted. So

23:54

you sort of like the

23:57

internal sensations and the emotions kind of

23:59

come first. And then the thought

24:02

part is actually just a way that you put

24:05

language to the experience that you're having in

24:07

your body. And those experiences that you have in your

24:09

body are entirely shaped by

24:11

your past experiences, your perception of

24:13

the world, what you think

24:15

of other people, what you think of the specific

24:18

person making the sound. Some people will be

24:20

bothered only by one person in their life.

24:22

And any sound that they make drives them

24:24

mad. But when it comes to somebody else,

24:26

it's no problem. Yeah,

24:29

it's so fascinating because, you know, I

24:31

mentioned before, my perspective is deeply existential.

24:33

I use CBT approaches all the time, as

24:35

I think most clinicians do, but

24:37

I don't really conceptualize through a CBT

24:39

lens. But for anybody listening

24:41

who's like globally good, that's fine, just

24:43

fast forward. But for those who

24:45

are like really deeply interested in this, the funny thing

24:48

is I find that it's

24:50

a lot of like different labels for the

24:52

exact same thing in psychology. And for me,

24:54

yeah, I see that as just meaning making.

24:56

What we do in our life is we're

24:59

just constantly trying to make meaning out of

25:01

data inputs. And we have

25:03

all of these data inputs and then we

25:05

have to make meaning from them. And I'm

25:08

super curious, though, you mentioned something before about

25:10

chewing. And I wanted to make

25:12

sure that I brought this up because sometimes

25:14

when you look up even just the definition

25:16

of misophonia, people explicitly list it

25:19

as like an aversive reaction to

25:21

chewing sounds. Why has it gotten

25:23

that weird bias?

25:25

Like misophonia equals I don't

25:28

like chewing sounds because it can be any

25:30

sound, right? It can

25:32

be any sound. Like it can

25:34

be sort of like your brain couldn't attach

25:36

these reactions, this sort

25:38

of meaning to any sound

25:40

given the right circumstances. But

25:44

overwhelmingly, chewing is the

25:46

most frequently reported. And again,

25:48

in that general population study

25:51

and a misophonia sample, like

25:53

the chewing, the reaction,

25:58

they've been endorsed. triggered

26:00

by chewing, you could predict their

26:03

misophonia severity from it. There's like

26:05

some couple statistics that I don't

26:08

massively understand, but it was

26:10

one of the best sounds

26:12

to use to determine whether someone was

26:14

likely to have misophonia or

26:16

not. You

26:19

can have misophonia without having an aversion

26:21

to chewing, but it is overwhelmingly one

26:25

of the most common and one of the

26:27

most intense reactions. It's

26:30

more likely to cause an

26:32

anger or panic response, whereas some

26:34

of the other trigger sounds might

26:36

be more of an irritation or disgust kind of

26:39

response. So the nature of the reaction to chewing

26:41

can be different as well. That's

26:43

fascinating. So I'm curious,

26:45

we talked a little bit about

26:47

the categorical versus dimensional aspects and

26:51

what a spectrum looks like. When you're

26:53

working specifically, maybe not so much in

26:55

a research capacity, but in a clinical

26:58

capacity, when you're actually interested in

27:00

helping people who have misophonia to

27:03

the extent that it is

27:06

impacting their lives negatively, what

27:09

do you notice or what are

27:11

some of the common endorsements? What's

27:13

the experience like for individuals for whom

27:16

they go to a psychologist for

27:18

help? I

27:20

think there are a few things. So

27:25

that variable factor that I

27:27

described before, that emotional threat factor, that's

27:29

the key one that keeps coming up, this

27:31

sense of feeling trapped, feeling

27:33

helpless, feeling like you might panic or

27:35

explode when you're around these sounds. So

27:38

there's a nicely descriptive

27:40

way of responding to sounds. And

27:42

so therefore, sometimes it's

27:45

just that someone has that really strong

27:47

and it starts to get in the

27:49

way of their life, or they have sounds

27:51

around them that cause that reaction

27:55

so frequently that they can't get on with

27:57

living their life. So it might be... They

28:00

live below somebody with very heavy

28:02

feet who stomps all

28:04

day and so they're constantly having

28:07

that trigger response. Another

28:11

aspect of it is, again,

28:14

not just the meaning of the sound itself,

28:16

but the meaning of your reaction. Feeling

28:19

bad about yourself, feeling ashamed or

28:21

embarrassed by your reactions, being

28:23

afraid of what you might do, afraid

28:25

you might snap and hurt somebody or

28:27

say something that you regret being

28:30

afraid of being judged by other people if

28:32

they know that you're reacting this way. The

28:36

alternative is feeling really

28:38

strong feelings towards the person making

28:40

the sound. Feeling like,

28:42

if you're making the sound, that means you don't

28:44

care about me or that you want to harm

28:47

me. In

28:51

some cases, a distorted perception, it

28:53

feels like that, but you know that it's

28:56

not. In other cases, that is exactly what's

28:58

happening. Sometimes people in the

29:00

workplace, for example, say, once I told them

29:02

that I get a strong reaction to this

29:04

sound, they started making the sound deliberately around

29:06

me. Then it becomes a

29:08

bullying problem that is showing

29:11

up through misophonia,

29:14

but there is also this very real problem around

29:16

that in the workplace. I

29:20

have just gone off on having the

29:22

magic. No, it's fascinating. It shows all

29:24

the different aspects. It shows

29:26

the professional, the personal, the

29:29

relational. We

29:34

think of this when we think about diagnostics.

29:36

Is it affecting somebody in school or work?

29:38

Is it affecting them in their romantic relationships,

29:40

in their family, in their social set? It

29:43

seems like for a lot of people who

29:45

really struggle with misophonia, every

29:47

interaction with another human being

29:50

is very loaded and it can

29:52

get really complicated really fast. Their

29:55

life can just get smaller and smaller because

29:57

avoidance is one of the easy things. things

30:00

to do to make the reaction

30:02

go away, then you stop doing things

30:04

that you would like to be doing because

30:07

of the sounds that you might come

30:09

across there. So the point that people

30:11

usually come for help is because it's

30:13

affecting school or work or relationships

30:16

or it's limiting their life in

30:18

some way. And you see

30:20

this kind of, or at least I'm noticing

30:22

a parallel here with obsessive-compulsive disorder where

30:24

even though it's very different in terms of

30:27

the disorder, right, that there's, we're

30:29

not talking about a link between these

30:32

sort of obsessive thought patterns and these

30:35

behaviors, but what often happens, especially with

30:37

obsessive-compulsive with agoraphobia, is that people's lives

30:39

get smaller, is they start avoiding certain

30:42

situations and sometimes it gets so bad

30:44

that they can't leave their homes. Yeah,

30:47

absolutely. And that's one of the things that

30:49

I'm really interested in in terms of how

30:51

we help people with schizophrenia is looking at

30:54

those similarities with

30:56

other conditions and

30:58

obsessive-compulsive disorder is a really good example because one

31:00

of the things that can happen for people with

31:03

misophonia is that they get these violent thoughts and

31:05

images about the person making

31:07

the sound and can have

31:09

a reaction similar to what somebody with OCD

31:11

has when they have an intrusion where they

31:14

feel like, this makes me a terrible person,

31:16

or what if I act on this? What if

31:18

I can't control myself one day? What's wrong with

31:21

me that I'm thinking and feeling this way? And

31:23

so when you're working with

31:25

somebody, if you can find those similarities

31:28

with other conditions, you

31:30

can use some of the strategies

31:32

that we already know work for those

31:35

particular aspects of the condition. You

31:37

know, it's so fascinating because I've been kind of

31:40

thinking in my head this whole time and again,

31:42

this is going to be a little bit sort

31:44

of wonky, but I've had... Gosh, I don't

31:47

even know what episode number I'm on right now

31:49

with Talk Nerdy, but we've been on air for

31:51

almost 10 years, so I'm actually going to scroll

31:54

to my spreadsheet right now to see. So I think

31:56

your episode is episode 400. So

32:00

obviously, I've talked about a lot of different things on the show

32:02

over the years. And I remember

32:04

speaking with Lulu Miller about

32:07

her book, Why Fish Don't Exist,

32:09

which of course was a biography,

32:11

but it was also a real

32:13

grappling with categories and

32:15

with the human need to put things into

32:18

categories and to say, this is related to

32:20

this, but not related to that. And I'm

32:22

fascinated by this concept as well, because on

32:25

the one hand, I can say it's so meaningful and

32:27

so helpful for us to organize the world. And on

32:29

the other hand, you can almost say it's completely arbitrary

32:31

and doesn't matter. But

32:33

I'm so curious from your

32:36

perspective, and obviously if this

32:38

is a professional question that

32:41

you're like, I cannot answer, don't worry about

32:43

it. But if you were to redesign a

32:45

DSM, where would you put this disorder? Would

32:48

you put it with anxiety disorders? Would

32:50

you put it closer to an OCD,

32:52

which used to be thought of

32:55

as anxiety, but now some people argue that it's not?

32:58

Would you put it as a sensory

33:00

integration disorder or like maybe on

33:02

the autism spectrum? Where would you stick

33:05

this? It's

33:07

a great question. And firstly, I

33:09

think I would be reorganizing some

33:11

of those categories anyway. Anyway, yeah,

33:14

exactly. The

33:17

closest I think

33:19

would probably be

33:21

neurodevelopmental conditions. Yeah,

33:23

along with autism,

33:26

attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, that

33:29

there's probably for, and especially because there's

33:31

some real consistency in the age of

33:33

onset. So a lot of people say

33:36

that it develops around the age of

33:38

eight or nine, or maybe around 11

33:40

or 12. There's sort of

33:42

these two points where lots of people say it develops

33:44

around that time. And some people it's a bit earlier.

33:46

And some people it's just later in

33:49

life after a certain event. So there

33:51

is examples of sort of transient experiences

33:53

of misophonia. Oh, right. Almost

33:55

like a PTSD reaction. Yeah,

33:57

absolutely. So, It

34:00

could be after an ear infection, suddenly your brain

34:02

is tuning into these sounds and you're like, why

34:05

am I suddenly not able to ignore these sounds

34:07

and then get really frustrated and then it sort

34:10

of builds into more like a misophonia reaction.

34:13

But for most people, they can relate to as

34:16

a kid having a sensitivity

34:18

to these particular sounds, finding it hard to

34:21

tune them out. At some point, it may

34:23

be developed into more of a problem. Sometimes

34:26

that's around a specific transition or

34:28

event in their life or conflict

34:30

or something that was sort of

34:32

unsettling, it might grow. But

34:35

I think that there is probably for

34:37

most people this key element that won't

34:39

change. And so you

34:41

sort of just have to learn how to live

34:44

with the fact that your brain processes sounds a little bit

34:46

differently. But I do think there are lots of

34:48

layers to the problem that I

34:50

would relate, I can relate more to anxiety

34:53

disorders, OCD, where the meaning gets

34:55

placed on the reaction and that's

34:57

something that we can change. And

34:59

if your brain is treating these sounds

35:02

as harmful or threatening in some way,

35:05

then there are

35:07

things that we can do to make

35:09

it so that those sounds feel no

35:11

more harmful than any other annoying sound.

35:14

And so that part of it, I think, can

35:16

change. But I think you'll still be left with

35:18

this part that just doesn't tune out these sounds.

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36:22

So you know, I'm curious when somebody comes to you

36:25

for help, I mean, obviously, therapy is

36:27

never one size fits all and it

36:30

really depends on the individual experience.

36:32

But are you finding that things like

36:35

exposure and response prevention, things like maybe

36:37

even ACT, like acceptance and commitment therapy

36:39

or maybe aspects of DBT, like what

36:42

kinds of approaches are you

36:44

usually taking? Well

36:46

because everyone does have a really different experience,

36:48

at the moment what

36:51

we do is use a lot

36:53

of transdiagnostic techniques. So we look at

36:57

what's the sort of cycle for this particular

36:59

person that we can see is happening.

37:01

So if they happen to spend a lot of

37:04

time ruminating between the sounds, then we'll use an

37:06

intervention for rumination. If they're

37:08

feeling hopeless and like their

37:10

future's going to be miserable

37:13

because of misophonia, then we might use

37:15

some depression type interventions.

37:18

If they're feeling like they're going to get so angry that

37:21

something terrible would happen like a stroke or

37:23

a heart attack or something, then we'll use

37:25

some ideas from panic and sort of interoceptive

37:28

exposure type things. So

37:30

we'll sort of look at what's going on and choose

37:33

things that we know work for

37:36

those particular mechanisms

37:38

and work on kind of the layers around the misophonia.

37:40

So if someone, one of the things that we do

37:42

pretty frequently in our clinic here in Oxford is looking

37:45

at those childhood experiences. So

37:48

there's this technique called emotion bridging where

37:50

you bring a recent example to the surface

37:52

of a strong reaction to the

37:54

sound, get all the emotions back to the surface

37:56

and then you sort of float back to what

37:59

does this remind you of? you of, when's the first time

38:01

you remember feeling this way, any early

38:03

childhood memories that your mind takes you back to

38:06

when you're feeling this. Almost

38:08

always, adults with misophonia,

38:11

it does take them back to a specific

38:13

memory. Then we do memory

38:16

re-scripting, image re-scripting, which

38:18

comes from trauma-focused therapy.

38:24

That's also part of schema therapy

38:26

where basically you work

38:28

out what was missing at the time that means

38:30

that this memory has become frozen in time and

38:33

you update it with what you needed

38:35

at the time, so you meet the needs of that child.

38:37

If what they needed was somebody to

38:40

say, yeah, exactly. It could be

38:42

you didn't know what misophonia was and so

38:44

you thought you were going crazy. We

38:47

talk to the child and say, it's okay,

38:49

there's this thing called misophonia, you're not crazy.

38:52

The people at the table don't understand why you're

38:54

so upset, but that's because they don't know

38:56

about misophonia either. If we

38:58

can do that for that child within

39:00

you, then when you're reacting in the

39:02

current moment, it gets less influenced by

39:05

those early experiences that tell you that

39:07

you're in danger or that you're being

39:09

harmed when you know that's not really

39:11

what's happening. That's another

39:13

key technique that we use

39:16

with most adults with misophonia.

39:21

The only thing that's really misophonia-specific

39:23

are the sound-based exercises that we

39:25

do. That's where it's based

39:28

on that idea that the brain has made

39:31

a connection between this sound and some kind

39:33

of harm or threat or

39:35

danger. What we want to do is

39:37

break that connection. That was

39:39

really similar to OCD, like

39:41

exposure and response prevention. It

39:45

is, but with OCD, we

39:47

don't really do the

39:49

graded exposure thing very often in the UK

39:53

anymore. We would do more behavioral

39:55

experiments where you test out what

39:57

you predict will happen. If

40:03

you stay in the room with the toilet or

40:05

you touch the toilet and don't wash your hands,

40:07

what do you predict will happen? And then we

40:09

test whether that prediction is true, but we don't

40:11

make people just sit there and wait for the

40:13

anxiety to come down. We also know that that

40:15

doesn't really work very well for misophonia because actually

40:17

the opposite can happen and they can become more

40:19

sensitized to the sound. So if they just have

40:22

to sit there and listen to the sound, unless

40:24

you're testing a specific belief about what will happen

40:27

for a lot of people, they will actually just

40:29

get more and more upset, more angry, more disgusted.

40:34

Unless there's a very specific clinical

40:37

reason that the patient agrees with

40:39

to do any kind of graded exposure,

40:42

we don't recommend it. So what we

40:44

do instead is we try and create new experiences with

40:46

sound because what we're trying to do is teach

40:48

the brain that this sound is no more

40:50

harmful than any other annoying sound. So

40:53

if the theory is

40:55

that you feel like it's harmful

40:57

because of your previous experiences with

40:59

that sound, then we create new

41:01

experiences that don't feel harmful or

41:03

dangerous. And that might be doing

41:06

something silly with the sound. It might just

41:08

be being in control of the sound. So

41:10

having a recording and turning the volume up,

41:12

speeding it up, slowing it down, listening to

41:14

it in different ways, making a

41:16

piece of music out of the sound, but

41:18

just doing different things with

41:21

that sound so that the brain gets

41:23

an opportunity to experience that sound in

41:26

a situation where you're in complete control

41:29

and where it's not harmful or

41:32

dangerous in any way. It's

41:34

so funny because I think about

41:36

that specific approach and how almost,

41:38

I don't want to use the word

41:41

natural because it's so loaded, but how almost, I'm

41:43

going to use it anyway, natural it is, that

41:46

so many people do it

41:48

anyway. They already cope

41:50

that. People with, I think, higher

41:53

coping mechanisms already,

41:55

let's say there's a grating

41:58

or frustrating or disgusting. sound.

42:00

They might sing a song over top of

42:02

it or they might utilize that sound and

42:05

turn it into something else in order to

42:07

cope in that moment. Yeah

42:09

and if we sort of distinguish

42:11

between the people who come looking for help and

42:13

the people who are coping to fun with misophonia,

42:15

that's one of the differences is that the

42:18

instinctive strategies can

42:21

be helpful and therefore it's

42:23

not that big of a problem. So in

42:25

the same way... So they may need to

42:27

learn those strategies. Yeah and we often learn

42:29

them naturally but just in the same way

42:31

that somebody with panic

42:34

disorder who has panic attacks, like

42:36

someone else, might one day have

42:38

a racing heart and go, oh my god

42:41

I'm having a heart attack and then they'll go, no you know

42:43

what, it's probably just because I had an extra strong coffee and

42:45

I'm running for the bus. That's probably

42:47

why my heart's racing. So that's

42:49

a really natural process to do as well is to

42:51

kind of update the experience

42:53

with new information that is a better theory

42:56

for what's going on. And

42:58

the problem is that people with panic

43:00

attacks often can't do that. Yeah.

43:02

For any number of reasons. Even if they know

43:05

that, yeah even if they know that, it's sometimes

43:07

not enough for them to not feel those sensations.

43:09

Yeah and they don't have access

43:11

to it in the moment that they're panicking and

43:14

therefore even if

43:16

they know outside of the moment that a panic

43:18

attack is just a panic attack, they're not believing

43:20

it in the moment. In the moment it feels like

43:22

they're dying and so they're going to react as

43:24

if they are dying just in case because what

43:26

if they are? Right. Yeah

43:29

and so in the same way that with panic

43:32

what we would do is we'd say, okay well

43:34

let's create a controlled environment, you're in charge,

43:36

let's get your heart rate up and see

43:38

what happens. Let's see if when your heart

43:40

beats fast, does it explode? Do

43:42

you have a heart attack or is

43:44

it just that that feels scary and

43:47

actually is a really normal

43:49

bodily sensation? And so we're doing the

43:51

same thing with sounds. It's like maybe this sound,

43:54

it might be gross, it might

43:56

be annoying but it's not harming you,

43:58

it just feels like it is. So

44:01

I'm curious maybe to kind of transition a little

44:03

bit to some news you can use. You know,

44:05

I like to do that on the show for

44:07

those who are listening. Obviously, if somebody's listening to

44:09

the show, they're really identifying with this. They're finally

44:12

able to put a label on an experience they've

44:14

had their whole lives and starting to realize maybe

44:16

I should talk to somebody. Obviously

44:18

that's the advice we would give. Talk to somebody,

44:20

you know, try and seek out a

44:23

therapist who can help you with that.

44:25

But if there's somebody who's listening who

44:27

has been utilizing some of their own

44:29

coping mechanisms or kind of like you

44:31

talked about, they're experiencing some of that

44:33

subclinical mesophonia, what are some

44:35

recommendations that you might make that

44:38

individuals could practice

44:40

or could work towards to

44:42

try and lessen the impact a little bit

44:44

or soften the blow a little bit? Like

44:46

the next time I hear a rake on

44:48

a sidewalk, what do you recommend I do? Well,

44:53

I think the first thing is having the

44:55

information that you need. So having a word

44:57

for what you're experiencing, knowing that you're not

45:00

the only person experiencing it, knowing that you're

45:02

not crazy. You know, like I spent most

45:04

of my life thinking I was really uptight

45:06

and controlling because of the way that I

45:08

reacted to sounds. Even though

45:10

I wasn't that way, I mean, I'm a little bit

45:12

uptight normally anyway, but it

45:14

wasn't like I was sort of chronically uptight or

45:16

controlling in any other aspect of my life. But

45:19

because I was when it came to sound, it

45:21

made me feel like that was part of my

45:23

personality. So I think that's

45:25

the first part is just reminding yourself that

45:27

you're not a terrible person. You just

45:29

process sounds differently. And

45:31

I think that alone can be really helpful for a lot of

45:33

people. But one of the reasons

45:35

I wrote the book is because there are

45:37

lots of different things that you can do

45:39

to be sort of curious about your reactions

45:42

to sounds that can then change the way

45:44

your brain relates to those

45:46

sounds. And so that's the

45:48

thing that I would recommend is be

45:50

really curious about sounds. It might just be

45:53

like listen to the sound and label

45:55

all of the different physical or acoustic properties

45:57

that you can hear in the sound. label

46:00

all the feelings that you experience in your body

46:02

when you're listening to the sound. Think about what

46:04

else it could be that could

46:06

make a similar sound. So a sniffing

46:09

sound can sound like a broom

46:11

pushing on a footpath.

46:15

A slurping of tea

46:17

can sound like a drain

46:19

emptying out.

46:22

Or like

46:24

a sniffing sound can also sound like a... Sorry,

46:27

a slurping sound can also sound like velcro ripping or

46:30

a zip opening. So just sort of think

46:32

of what else could be making this sound. And that

46:35

way you're interacting with

46:37

sounds in a

46:39

neutral or non-harmful way. And your

46:41

brain, over time, with repetition, will actually

46:44

start to learn, oh, okay, this is...

46:47

It might still be annoying, but it's

46:49

not harmful. And

46:51

in terms of your question about what you do

46:53

about the break, that's the other thing, is also

46:56

that if you get this really intense reaction to

46:58

sounds and you

47:01

are curious and you experiment with it and you

47:03

still get the same reaction, then just use

47:05

earplugs. Just put headphones on, just leave the

47:07

room. That's okay too. It doesn't

47:09

make you a bad

47:11

person or too sensitive

47:14

or any of that. It's okay

47:16

to need strategies to help you focus, to

47:18

help you relax, to get away from things

47:20

that feel uncomfortable. It's okay

47:22

to want to make yourself more comfortable.

47:25

Yeah. And I would add to that even what

47:27

I try to do is just normalize it. So

47:29

if I am in a group, obviously, if I'm

47:31

in a business meeting and there's a rake on

47:33

the sidewalk outside, it may not be socially acceptable

47:35

for me to get up and get

47:37

out of the room. But maybe I can excuse myself to go to

47:40

the bathroom or something like that. But if I'm with friends or

47:42

with people I trust and I feel safe with,

47:44

I will literally put my fingers in my ears

47:47

and be like, I cannot stand the sound I

47:49

have to go. And it's funny because a lot

47:51

of other people are like, oh, I have things

47:53

like that too. And it does normalize the experience.

47:55

Yeah. And that's one of the things that I

47:57

sort of want people to preserve as well. part

48:00

of the experience of therapy or of reading

48:02

the book is you are allowed to have

48:04

an opinion about a sound. The problem is

48:06

that you have the opinion about the sound.

48:08

You're allowed to think it's disgusting. You're allowed

48:10

to think that people shouldn't eat with their

48:13

mouth open. But all of that is okay.

48:15

And it doesn't make you a terrible person

48:17

because that's just

48:19

individual difference. It's just let's

48:21

not let this stop you from

48:23

being able to do things with people that you

48:26

care about. Let's not let this stop you from

48:28

being able to work and concentrate and just

48:30

use the strategies that you need to be able

48:32

to do those things. And

48:34

that's okay. And I don't think it's

48:36

the same as, you know, we're comparing it

48:38

to OCD before. And what we know with OCD

48:41

through lots of experimental research is that the

48:43

behavior, the compulsion part of OCD

48:46

reinforces the distress. So the more

48:48

you do the behavior, the

48:50

more it fuels the OCD. And I'm not

48:53

convinced that that's the case for misophonia. I think that

48:55

there are a lot of people who just use really

48:58

helpful coping strategies that enable them

49:00

to participate in life. And

49:02

it doesn't necessarily make the problem worse.

49:04

And there may be examples where

49:07

people are doing things that are sort of

49:09

causing problems in relationships, and they might want

49:11

to tweak those things. So I also encourage

49:13

people to be curious about their strategies and

49:15

test them out and experiment with different ones

49:17

so that they feel like they're picking the

49:19

best ones for them. But

49:21

I don't there's no good evidence at

49:24

this stage from the research that says we

49:26

shouldn't be putting in

49:28

earplugs when we want to concentrate,

49:30

that we shouldn't be leaving the room if

49:32

we need a little break from the sound. There's

49:34

nothing that tells us from research that that's a

49:36

bad thing. Yeah,

49:39

yeah, yeah. Oh, that's so helpful. You know,

49:41

I usually at this point

49:43

in the show, I'm closing up and I'm

49:45

realizing that usually in the show, I also

49:47

open with obviously the researcher or the writers

49:49

experience of their own, like, how'd you get

49:51

into this? And I just kind of blew

49:53

past the fact I mentioned that you had

49:55

your own subjective experience of this, but I

49:58

would love to maybe just take a few

50:00

minutes for you to share with us, if

50:02

you're comfortable, like your own experience with misophonia

50:04

and how it affected, obviously, your

50:06

interest in the work. Yeah,

50:09

I think it very heavily affected my

50:11

interest in the work. I

50:13

definitely wouldn't be doing this work if it

50:15

wasn't for my own experience with misophonia. And

50:19

I dedicated the book to myself as a

50:21

teenager. This is basically, when I was sitting

50:23

there writing the book, I was like, what do I wish

50:25

I'd known when I was 15 years old? And

50:28

I used to have to sit in the classroom with, I

50:30

had like a big clunky old Walkman in my

50:32

pocket, and I would feed the headphones

50:35

up through my school uniform and hide the

50:37

earbuds onto my hair so that I could

50:40

have music playing so that I wouldn't get

50:42

distracted by clicking pens and people talking

50:44

and ruffling and making sounds in the classroom.

50:47

So I had these strategies, and I felt

50:49

really, really alone in those strategies. And I

50:51

was literally like shoving the world out with

50:54

those strategies. And

50:57

it wasn't until I was in my 30s

50:59

that I discovered the term misophonia was such

51:02

a relief. I was like, oh my goodness,

51:04

like everything makes sense just knowing

51:06

that that is a phenomenon that

51:08

exists. And I'm

51:10

not crazy. And

51:14

even that idea that it

51:17

might mean there's something I could do about it

51:19

as well. And because I was a clinical psychologist

51:21

and I knew lots of strategies

51:23

from working with other conditions, I started to

51:25

experiment on myself. And that's, again, where this

51:27

all started was I just tried stuff out

51:29

of myself and it helped. And

51:31

so then I started thinking, okay, well, maybe we

51:33

should be helping other people. Yeah.

51:37

And did you like find in

51:40

your movement towards kind of training

51:43

and becoming expert in this area,

51:45

did you find other professionals,

51:47

like other psychologists, other researchers who sort of

51:49

found a similar path? Like, yeah, I got

51:51

into this because I totally have to deal

51:53

with this too. Well, all

51:56

of the, like I was already a

51:58

clinical psychologist when I discovered what misophonia was, and

52:00

so it wasn't like a driving force to

52:02

becoming a therapist or anything. But

52:05

I'm now doing a second doctorate basically

52:07

because I'm retraining in research so that

52:09

I can get back into research so

52:11

that I can understand

52:13

this better and really test

52:15

those mechanisms that could be influencing

52:18

someone's experience of misophonia and what might

52:20

work in terms of treatment. And

52:24

so that pivot back to research

52:26

was, I only did

52:28

that because I wanted to

52:30

know more about misophonia. Yeah,

52:34

it's funny because I feel like I've seen

52:36

something really similar with psychologists

52:39

and neuroscientists who themselves

52:42

have synesthesia and then ultimately

52:45

ended up studying synesthesia. And

52:48

I wonder if there is like some similar

52:50

crossover there as well, but it's just absolutely

52:52

fascinating. I think that this, I was really

52:54

excited when your book came across my desk

52:56

and the opportunity to interview you came up

52:58

because it is such an, to

53:01

me, interesting. I think I might call

53:03

what I deal with misophonia light.

53:06

Again, I definitely can

53:08

identify with the phenomenon, but I do see

53:10

it more as a phenomenon for me and

53:12

less of like a clinically

53:14

kind of relevant thing that I have

53:16

to, that really it

53:18

impacts my life in a negative way. But

53:21

I was just so hopeful

53:23

that individuals listening to

53:26

the show might identify with this. And

53:29

even if they personally don't struggle with it, they

53:31

might know somebody who does and that this would

53:33

raise a little bit of awareness about that. It's

53:35

just, it's fascinating, but it really does come home.

53:37

So I'm super grateful for the work that you do

53:39

and for the fact that you wrote this book

53:42

for a general audience to be able to read

53:44

about it, educate themselves and hopefully

53:46

normalize their experiences a little bit.

53:49

Yeah, absolutely. When

53:51

the book first came out, one of the things

53:53

that I noticed on Amazon was that it was

53:55

one of the most gifted books. We're

54:00

just subtly sending it to anyone who'd

54:03

ever glared at them for eating tortilla

54:06

chips or something. I love that. I

54:09

like that idea that it was just showing up on

54:11

people's doorsteps. Like, who sent this to me? Oh,

54:14

well, I guess it does apply. Oh

54:16

my gosh, that's so funny. Well

54:18

gosh, everybody, the book is Sounds

54:21

Like Misophonia, How to Stop Small

54:23

Noises from Causing Extreme Reactions by

54:25

Dr. Jane Gregory. Jane, thank you

54:27

so much for spending time with

54:29

us today, for educating us, for

54:31

entertaining us, and for helping us

54:33

dig a little bit deeper into

54:35

this pretty common phenomenon. Well,

54:38

thank you for being interested in

54:40

this common phenomenon that somehow people

54:42

still don't know about, and

54:45

yeah, for inviting me on to talk about it. Absolutely.

54:48

And everyone listening, thank you for coming

54:50

back week after week. I'm really

54:52

looking forward to the next time we all get together

54:54

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