Besides considering tinnitus as a complication following a hearing impairment or a sudden noise trauma, it is essential to consider the emotional suffering of the patient as it may be linked to personal experiences in life. Repressed traumatic incidents can manifest itself in the wake of tinnitus onset.  

Objective

In the case of tinnitus suffering psychotherapy resting on psychodynamic foundations has a very remote place in the literature. Naturally, the narrative of the client is of special quality in the psychodynamic psychotherapy approach. The objective of this study was therefore to illustrate how the narrative of a suffering client can be an inherent part of psychotherapy as well as a source of qualitative data in research on tinnitus (Dauman & Erlandsson, 2012). 

Method

The patient was a 70 years old woman with tinnitus (Lucie) who experienced her suffering as life threatening, which at times required psychiatric hospitalization. She participated in 16 psychotherapy sessions taken place over a period of eight months. The interview method building on free associations was judged to be the best way to understand the meaning behind evoked narratives of the patient.

Results

With the purpose to describe the analytical procedure we applied a narrative structure based on the following four labels: Listening to Lucie - Learning from Lucie’s speech - Narrative breakdown and psychotherapy  - Psychodynamic insights on Lucie’s emotional drives. The social dimension of the patient’s suffering was a central theme in her narrative, expressed by others’ reluctance to listen to her despair as well as her own deep sorrow for a broken social bond prior to her psychological brake-down.

Conclusion

The construction of meaning is a human act of self-preservation. In this case, it helped the patient to overcome alienation and made her tinnitus bearable.