Therapist guided conversations with digital avatars may reduce the frequency of voices heard by patients diagnosed with psychosis as well as empowering them to resist hallucinations, according to a study led by researchers at King’s College London published in Nature Medicine.1The new Avatar therapy consists of a weekly series of guided three way sessions between voice hearer, therapist, and the digital representation of the distressing voice.It is estimated that about 0.7% of the UK population aged 16 or older experience symptoms of psychotic disorder.2 This puts the number of UK adults living with psychosis at about 300 000, of whom around 250 000 report hearing voices, according to Tom Craig, emeritus professor of social psychiatry at King’s College London and co-author of the study.In the study 345 participants were randomly assigned to three groups, undertaking either a six session general course, a 12 session personalised course, or a control of…