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Tinnitus and Cognitive Behavior Therapy

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Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine

Synonyms

Hearing disturbances; Perception of internal noise (false)

Definition

Tinnitus is an auditory perceptual phenomenon that is defined as the conscious perception of internal noises without any outer auditory stimulation. The sounds may be very loud and bizarre, and the most common ones are heard like a high-pitched musical tone or a rushing sound like escaping steam or air. Other descriptions can be more complicated such as metallic sounds, multiple tones of varying frequencies, and mixtures between buzzing and ringing.

Tinnitus is in most cases a temporary sensation, which many people have experienced at least sometime in their life. However, it may develop into a chronic condition, and prevalence figures show that at least 10–15% of the general population have tinnitus. Fortunately, most persons do not have severe tinnitus. Only about 1–3% of the adult population has severe tinnitus, in the sense that it causes marked disruption of everyday activities, mood changes, reduced...

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References and Readings

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Correspondence to Gerhard Andersson .

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Andersson, G. (2020). Tinnitus and Cognitive Behavior Therapy. In: Gellman, M.D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39903-0_1606

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39903-0_1606

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-39901-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-39903-0

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