✨ New Publication: Ethics of Audiologist-Delivered CBT for Tinnitus — A Kierkegaardian Perspective ✨

📜 What’s it about?
Can audiologists ethically deliver CBT for tinnitus?
Dr. Hashir Aazh’s latest article, published in Audiology World News (14 September 2025), argues yes — when trained and competent, audiologists are ideally placed to reduce tinnitus-related distress.

🎯 Key Insight
🎧 Patients often seek help from audiologists first.
🧠 CBT is evidence-based for tinnitus distress — but institutional silence leaves clinicians with an ethical dilemma.
⚖️ Dr. Aazh frames audiologist-delivered CBT as a courageous, proportionate response to unmet need rather than a boundary violation.

💡 Why it matters
This paper shows how trained audiologists can act ethically, compassionately, and confidently to meet the needs of patients who might otherwise go untreated.

📝 Summary of the Paper

This article explores the moral and practical dilemma faced by audiologists who have trained in CBT and wish to use it to relieve tinnitus-related distress. Patients often present first to audiologists rather than psychologists, and many are reluctant to engage with mental health services. This places the audiologist in a unique position: they can offer timely, evidence-based care but risk criticism for crossing professional boundaries.

Dr. Aazh uses Kierkegaard’s reading of Antigone to illustrate this conflict. Like Antigone, who must choose between obeying civic law and honouring her brother, the audiologist must choose between two valid duties: respect for role boundaries and the imperative to reduce suffering. The paper argues that when the audiologist is competent and the patient is in need, beneficence and non-maleficence outweigh passive adherence to boundaries.

Importantly, tinnitus distress is not treated here as a psychiatric disorder but as a sensory-perceptual challenge maintained by maladaptive thoughts and behaviours. The CBT provided is therefore targeted, proportionate, and condition-specific, focusing solely on tinnitus-related distress.

This position reframes audiologist-delivered CBT as ethically responsible, rather than boundary-breaking. It highlights the courage, compassion, and practical wisdom required for audiologists to act in the face of institutional silence — choosing to help rather than defer, so that patients are not left waiting for care they may never receive.

🔗 📖 Read the full article in Audiology World News

Or read full text here.