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Three themes from a Misophonia interview study

Dibb et al. (2026) explored the lived experience of misophonia through 24 semi-structured interviews with adults reporting self-reported misophonia (screened with the Misophonia Response Scale), analysed inductively with reflexive thematic analysis, and developed three themes. The first, the experience of the misophonic response, captured strong emotional reactions (anger, disgust, aggressive thoughts), physiological changes (raised heart rate, body-wide electric-shock sensations, unwanted sexual arousal), and involuntary behavioural responses (staring, mimicking, fleeing, hypervigilance); the second, the perceived impact, spanned negative self-evaluations, damage across relationships (friends, family, partners, children, parents), and disruption to daily life, education, and work through avoidance; the third, influencing factors, comprised coping (avoidance, environmental control, earplugs, distraction), feeling understood by other misophonics after isolation, and exacerbating factors (stress, growth in triggers over time, the identity of the person triggering, and attributing malicious intent to those who know). The authors concluded that these themes give an in-depth account of the response, its impact on self and relationships, and how individuals cope, pointing to avoidant coping and awareness of support as targets for reducing the condition's negative impact (Dibb et al., 2026).