Table 6.

Factors Associated With Efficacy of Control Over Voice-Hearing Experiences

1.Mood changes
Treatment-Seeking [TS]	Non-Treatment-Seeking [NTS]
TS14  “No. I’m not always distressed by them [voices]. Like I said, it’s, it depends on my environment, and if I’m stressed or not stressed. Or if I have like a setback, obviously, they are going to be more prominent than like right now, as I struggle more with motivation and flatness and stuff like that.”    TS18  “I could control … I got to put myself in a good mood if they’re negative. I cheer myself up. But if they’re positive, they’ll usually be giving me advice…”    TS20  “I can change my mood and then it stops [the voices]. But usually I can’t control it (referring to the mood), so I just go to sleep.”	NTS07  “So like if like sometimes they would make me feel bad, and I would sense a feeling. So, like why am I feeling this, what’s going on?” …” the longer I’ve been in therapy, the longer I’ve done like life coaching and, have gotten my own personal world in order, there’s less and less and less of bad stuff.”
2.Structured and predicted daily schedule
TS21  “I seclude myself. It’s another part of taking care of myself. I learned I really can’t just push through. that will not work, it’ll just make it worse. So, what I do is I go home, I go in my room, and I just surround myself with comfort things.”	NTS04  “Well I’m on a schedule. If I’m sitting at dinner, and two or three shows up (referring to voices), and I’m stunned to the couple of times, I will say out loud, “too early, it’s 5 o’clock, you are not supposed to come until 7.”
3.Self-care habits
TS14  “I practice mindfulness and meditation when I can. And I’m very into exercise, when I can. I mean, I still struggle daily…but I do really what I can, like, to promote my own health, because I know I have some sort of agency and control during all of this.”	NTS09  “But the meditation also allows a space to be created, … meditation is probably one of the best things that I do for myself for that.”    NTS07  “Meditation trainings to kind of calm the mind, some, what we would call like psychic development work..”
4.Beliefs about the voices
TS10  “When I was a teenager and in my 20s, I did not learn how to control them...He [a male voice] tells me a lot of negative, but lately since I’ve been learning how to control him … I’ve been hearing better voices.”    TS18  “[about negative voices] I was like, ok it might be something inside me telling me these negative things, but I turned it into a positive. So, if I do hear anything negative, I think about the pros and cons, things like that.”	NTS09  “Just energy. I don’t believe in ghosts, I’ll be the first person to say I don’t believe in the devil and I don’t believe in demons either. I believe there is energy that is frenetic.”    NTS02  ‘Most of my spirit guides are male. Very few are female, and those are very different conversations and uh…”    NTS06  “She was guiding me. Most of what I learned what to do, and how to do it. She taught me from the other side. She taught me sit quietly. She taught me, she would nudge me where to go.”