Since 1996 tinnitus patients consulting the Tinnitus & Hyperacusis Center Frankfurt have been treated using the tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT) developed by Jastreboff and Hazell (Jastreboff et al. , 1985). For this study only patients with at least half a year of medically guided active treatment were taken into account and evaluation was done after at least five years from the beginning of the treatment.

Phantome - das sind die eigentlichen, wenn auch verborgenen Akteure in dem vorliegenden Buch von Hans-Jürgen Heinrichs. Der Leser wird gemeinsam mit diesen Zwitterwesen, die irgendwo zwischen Realität und Einbildung zu existieren scheinen, auf die Spielbühne des Lebens gestellt. Er bekommt die Möglichkeit, wechselnde Rollen und Perspektiven einzunehmen, während er unablässig mit der Frage nach dem Verhältnis zwischen der realen Wirklichkeit und der wirklichen Realität konfrontiert wird.

Tinnitus patients initially seeking help in our Tinnitus Hyperacusis Center Frankfurt are often severely decompensated and in states of desperation. Their tinnitus has sometimes driven them into extreme forms of anxiety, into panic attacks and states of phobic excitation. Some patients even feel persecuted, haunted and threatened by their tinnitus. In such critical cases we treated our patients using fluspirilene (Imap) in order to be able to even start TRT with them.

Hyperacusis is present in more than 30% of our tinnitus patients and  sometimes the leading symptom causing disability. Therefore it is of vital importance to fit these patients during treatment with technical instruments in the optimal way. Since hyperacusis has to be treated first a decision about how to provide the patient with just the right device has to be made in the very beginning of treatment in each case. The practical experience presented in this study will give a rational basis for implementing technical devices in the treatment of hyperacusis.

An analysis not only of patients treated successfully  with TRT  is  necessary and helpful, but also the cases  that remain resistant to the therapy can teach us  a lot about  the mechanisms of tinnitus development and  methods of its reduction by implementing TRT in the right way. Such an analysis should enable us to  remove the obstacle  before starting the TRT or at least  inform patients right from the beginning of therapy if they are in a less promising situation.