What is Tinnitus Retraining Therapy and Who Can Benefit from It?

Tinnitus is unfortunately a common problem, affecting an estimated 50 million people in the U.S. over 50. People who have tinnitus hear constant sounds that no one around them can hear. These sounds vary from high-pitched ringing sounds, buzzing, or rapid clicking sounds much like crickets chirping. For many tinnitus sufferers, this persistent barrage of noise is more of a distraction than a disorder, but for many others it’s a cause of intense distress, bringing about symptoms such as anxiety, fatigue, sleep disorders, and depression.

Some forms of tinnitus respond well to treatment with hearing aids which are programmed to filter and suppress the ringing or buzzing sounds. In this article, we want to introduce you to an alternative tinnitus treatment known as Tinnitus Retraining Therapy (TRT). TRT can enable people suffering from tinnitus to use a combination of mechanisms to “retrain” their brains to reduce their perception of these sounds, eliminate their negative reactions to them, and eventually end their perception of them.

Discovered in the 1980s by neuroscientist Pawel Jastreboff, TRT challenges the assumptions of many hearing instrument specialists that tinnitus is a physical disorder due to ear damage that cannot be fixed. While damage to the ears – for example, exposure to loud noises for long periods of time – is often a cause of tinnitus, Jastreboff drew upon his training in neuroscience to propose an alternative behavioral neuro-physical model that explained the condition. Firmly believing that the condition could be fixed, he focused his efforts on developing behavior modification techniques.

The basic assumption of Tinnitus Retraining Therapy is that the tinnitus is not a disease per se, but a reflection of hyperacusis – a person’s innate ability to hear normal sounds generated by the auditory system that others cannot hear. In other words, it’s not the sounds themselves that are a problem, just the distress and over reaction to hearing them. During TRT counseling sessions – performed only by those who have been trained in the technique – a precise and individual combination of teaching and sound therapy are used to enable tinnitus sufferers to use their own cognitive functions to shut down their over reactions to the disturbing sounds, and focus more on the desirable sounds they want to hear.

Over the years, TRT counselors have had success with helping people to overcome their conditioned negative responses to the sounds they hear, and thus eliminate the distress they feel at hearing them.