Language of Voice-hearing featured in the UCL Minds Lunch Hour Lecture series

In this public lecture, I reported on parts of the Language of Voice Hearing project. I hope you will find it interesting!

ABSTRACT

Voice-hearing is reported by approximately 70% of individuals with schizophrenia-spectrum diagnoses, but a sizable minority cope well with such experiences. A key factor is the hearers’ perceptions of the power of the voices. In this talk, I report on a study of how 10 voice-hearers, with diagnoses of schizophrenia, describe their interactions with their voices. I show that the precise ways in which the voices attack or, more rarely, bolster, multiple aspects of the hearer’s sense of self are key to how the voices exercise power. I suggest how this kind of analysis might feed into existing therapies of voice-hearing.