Photo credit: Barney Moss licensed under CC BY 2.0
by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition
There are three main auditory disorders: hearing loss, tinnitus, and hyperacusis. But there’s a lesser-known fourth one, misophonia. Of these, only hearing loss is well understood, with the others understood in decreasing order as listed. And misophonia is often dismissed as a mood disorder.
This piece by NPR sheds some light on misophonia, the little-known and least understood auditory disorder that’s marked “by intense emotion like rage or fear in response to highly specific sounds, particularly ordinary sounds that other people make.” High on the list of hated sounds are mouth sounds like slurping and chewing, which makes life difficult for people with misophonia.
One hopes that other media pay attention to disorders like misophonia and approach the topic as thoughtfully as NPR has.
