Voices in your head, and insanity (do they go together?)

[InfiniteNow]

You might want to take note that all voices are in your head, even if it's someone else speaking, the input reaches your ears, stimulates a chemoelectrical impulse and is sent to various regions in the brain for interpretation.

 

The voices come from you, regardless of what they are saying and how much control you believe you have over them...

[HydrogenBond]

If we look at voices in the head from another angle, this can be induced with therapy to separate regressive behavior. For example, someone may be in a loop of depression stemming from an event in the past. The therapist may try to get the patient to differenitate the source and then help separate the ego from it, to help form an objectivity to it and all its dynamics. It is living software with dynamics of its own that has merged with the ego. It then is separated from the ego, and then through psycho drama (talking to the old you) may be depotentiated (software shuts down) until it can become a memory without any archetypical influence on the personality.

 

The voice in the head can often be in a transition between merger, which is what most should avoid, and depotentiation which is almost always more beneficial. Although, theoretically, software can be activate, interacted with by the ego for programming, and then allowed to merge with the ego for a quantum boost to the personality. Hitler sort of did this unknowingly but merged with a bad witch. These witches can affect other people below consciousness. In Hitler case it turned a nation insane.

[HydrogenBond]

Relative to voices in the head and personality software that has merged, the condition is sometimes treated with electroshock instead of therapy. It is sort of like a power surge on the computer that will cause the software to freeze. If the person doesn't reboot the software, they can become cured. This is probally not the best approach because it can cause damage to the brain's hardware.

 

Other old fashion merged personality software disruption techniques are the dope slat and the b*tch slap. In this case, the broken record attached to the ego is fixed by hitting the jukebox. I jest, but the shock alters brain potential similar to the way drugs alter the brain potential, so the software can become deactivated. This is no longer practiced accept by bikers.

 

B*itching is an example of a technique for activating software. Women are often good at motivating their men by verbally animating software that can give him more drive and direction against his lack of inertia to drink beer and veg. In the case of the biker dude, the software that is activated is often used to shut off his woman's software so he can veg in peace. The software is not the ego but an animated attachment that can separate.

[paigetheoracle]

Hearing voices is not always a sign of schizophrenia, but it should certainly be considered, especially if the voices don't go away and if they start telling the person to do strange things.

 

Firstly, you cannot here something that doesn't exist. I presume you mean that they don't belong to a physical presence that you're aware of.

 

Secondly, if the voices don't go away and start telling you to do strange things, that sounds more like a pervert up a backstreet, trying to feed you sweets in exchange for something not so sweet (Had that happen to me once - tried to con me that he knew my dad and wanted to get me behind the bicycle sheds (put me right off my Jaffa Cakes)). The point here being that internal voices are no worse than 'external' degenerate beings and should in my opinion be treated in the same way - you can't lock them up but you can talk to them and lead them into normal conversation and away from their 'act' or just ignore them and walk away, physically or mentally. Would you say that all people outside of you are figments of your imagination? If so, isn't this as crazy as (if not more so than) saying all internal voices are, when you consider that are radio or TV can be tuned to several different realities (channels) at the touch of a buttton or turn of a dial? My point here being that the mind is a reciever and it isn't just tuned into the obvious, outside, shared, consensus reality we call the world but may be open to other realities in the same way (The Multiverse theory or alternative levels of existence as the ancients formulated). Could psychometry be the human mind using its body as a reciever, in the same way we use a wireless for instance? Perhaps this point needs expanding in another, more appropriate forum but I think it is valid to mention it here as a continuance of this argument - what is the brain and what are internal voices and visualising, if not part of its functioning and is it really just a question of defining the terms to stop the confusion and set off research in a particular direction?

[InfiniteNow]

The issue is not whether internal dialogue and perception of voices which have no external association are part of the brain's functions, but whether or not the individual recognizes that the voices are generated by nothing but them, and if they sense they have control over those voices or not.

 

It's one thing if I imagine that my dead grandmother is guiding me through the process of making a pie and I "hear" her voice, it's quite another if am deluded to the point where I think she's really there as a separate entitity speaking with me and not a "part of me."

[paigetheoracle]

The issue is not whether internal dialogue and perception of voices which have no external association are part of the brain's functions, but whether or not the individual recognizes that the voices are generated by nothing but them, and if they sense they have control over those voices or not.

 

Are you saying that this is the question to be asked or that this is a fact? If you're saying this is a fact, where is the proof, even as logic? For me the jury is out as it hasn't been proved either way. Some people still believe such voices are external, while others believe they are always in their head. The question that arises though is where information comes from sometimes that could not possibly be known by the recipient but was known by somebody else, living or dead, that communicated with them (allegedly). That this is evidence of 'something' is to be found through witness accounts and objective discoveries afterwards, the question is what does this material disclose (Parapsychology) about reality and its actual significance? I personally believe it's a question of integrating something into your frame of reference or denying its existence because it doesn't fit your own view of the universe, which may or may not be true (Bad science alters the facts to fit the theory - good science alters the theory to fit the facts: The trial of Galilleo for instance). History is full of those who have fallen by the wayside defending outmoded beliefs and those who have fallen trying to push the barriers of consciousness beyond the accepted norms. To go forward with an open mind is to discover something new and unknown - to close your eyes and say it isn't there is to fail to deal with it and hide in your own ignorance (Alice through the Looking Glass and running on the spot, to stay in the same place or stopping and sitting on your laurels, while life throws you off the planet, while you're dreaming of former glories).

[InfiniteNow]

First, please locate the Return key on your keyboard before posting again. Thanks.

 

Are you saying that this is the question to be asked or that this is a fact? If you're saying this is a fact, where is the proof, even as logic?

 

I would like to direct you now to the following as a best current explanation, not 100% fact (whatever is?), but well tested and repeatedly confirmed:

 

http://www.dsmivtr.org/

 

More specifically, schizophrenia and phobias tend to be at play with the vast majority of individuals reporting voices.

 

 

To go forward with an open mind is to discover something new and unknown - to close your eyes and say it isn't there is to fail to deal with it and hide in your own ignorance.

It doesn't matter how open one's eyes are. Quite often, these issues are neuroanatomical and neurophysiological in nature. When they are not, it's generally someone who is pretending to hear voices because mommy and daddy didn't give them enough attention and they've been conditioned that pretending they have voices gets people to notice them.

 

That last part was personal opinion, but I could offer evidence of the psychological needs caused by attentional deficits and lack of social connection if you'd like.

 

 

Cheers. :eek2:

[paigetheoracle]

Infinite now - sorry about the return key - I shall try not to 'return' again! (Sadly have big and clumsy hands - inherited them from my father, though I'd rather he left me the money and the house).

 

Secondly, I don't dispute 'most' of what you said but certainly 'some'. It's not always the answer, even if a lot of the time it can be labelled so and dismissed. If you don't leave the door open to doubt, even a little bit, you end up shut in with only your certainty(prejudices) for company and that is not only boring for you but ensures no progress either in discovering anything new). Sadly that is me for the night (tired old man 'sin'drome).

[InfiniteNow]

If you don't leave the door open to doubt, even a little bit, you end up shut in with only your certainty(prejudices) for company and that is not only boring for you but ensures no progress either in discovering anything new).

We are in absolute agreement on this point. Well said, and thanks for hitting return. :)

 

 

Cheers. :eek2:

[HydrogenBond]

Another collective source of voices in the head are dreams. During sleep and dreams, the ego consciousness is powered down, i.e.,sensory systems are shut down, etc.. In dreams the ego is part of the dream but the drama of visuals and audio stem from the unconscious mind. Nobody would claim that dreams are a state needing medication or treatment because this is a natural part of brain activity.

 

When we awaken, the ego's power level goes up and the differentiated dream world becomes unconscious. If one was having dreams while they are awake, this would be considered skitso. Drugs are often used to shut off the voice and visions but the ego is usually zombied in the process, since the unconscious sources of ego power are disrupted leaving the ego at the low power level.

 

Picture a situation where a male sees a beautiful sexy babe. In some men, this may induce a fantasy. In the case of a fantasy, there is a conscious choice to down power the ego, i.e, detached from sensory reality, allowing sort of a day-dream split, that can result in an interactive fantasy.

 

On the other hand, some men will use the induced desire to power up the ego. In this case, the unconscious split is used to provide additional energy to the ego. It provides not only energy but also unconscious fantasy, which is projected onto the female. This may drive some men to push forward unwelcome advances because their projected fantasy sees a happy ending that has little to do with the reality of the situation.

 

The daydream scenario keeps the unconscious fantasy separate from the ego and would be considered immature or even unhealthy. But at the same time, it offers a means for objectivity to the internal source. The second scanario merges with the ego, providing extra ego energy. This would be consider normal and healthy. Yet, it also creates conditions where the merged unconsciousness , may lead to the violation of another human being.

[HydrogenBond]

There are many old fashion methods for dealing with voices in the head and/or its merger with the ego that can provide ego power up and unconscious projection. The oldest is religion. In other words, if one became irrationally compelled to beat up on one's friend, the merge affect would be called Satan, i.e., devil made me do it. Through knowledge of what Satan constituted one would differentiate the compulsive affect to create a split so it becomes an internal struggle. Prayer would then be used to help depotentiate this separated voice in the head. This is not as necessary nowadays since most humans are far less compulsive compared to people in ancient times. It is still a good technique.

 

Other social techniques are based on guilt and humiliation. Guilt is sort of a learned self censor for unconscious ego power-ups. This can be both good and bad. Guilt can be used to take away positive ego powerups and as well as negative ones. Humiliation works the same way, but is a social way to enforce control over merged ego power-ups. This leads to negative results more often than positive results.

[Michaelangelica]

I Think that voices in your head doesnt necesserally mean your insaine. I think that the voices are ur subconces interacting with your conces. Now what the voices are saying, depends on if you are insane or not......

 

check this link out

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/allinthemind/stories/2006/1689941.htm

Hearing Voices - the invisible intruders

 

Listen Now - 22072006 |� Download Audio - 22072006

 

Around 10% of the population hear voices that aren't there. Some people can live harmoniously with them, but for those whose voices are associated with a psychiatric illness, they can be frightening and menacingly real. We discuss the latest research on how auditory hallucinations occur in the brain, what it's like to live with voices in your head - and the healing power of the international Hearing Voices Network.

 

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Transcript

 

Lynne Malcolm: Hello, I'm Lynne Malcolm. Welcome to All in the Mind, and this week, hearing voices when there's nobody there.

 

The voices in my head are speaking above the music

Like a fool of a DJ reciting this week's number 1.

Maybe someone else would enjoy this but I'm banging on the walls

Knocking at the doors, turn the volume down and leave the party. (Joe Twist)

 

A poem by Joe Twist about his struggle with the voices in his head. The sensation of hearing voices, or feeling a presence, when there's no one there is a fairly common human experience. People feel them as inner voices, spiritual guides, the voice of a departed loved-one or the voice of God.

 

It's thought that 10% of the population has had some form of this experience, sometimes it's spiritually uplifting and comforting but sometimes malevolent and terrifying. It's when the voices are associated with a psychiatric illness and they're frequent, intrusive and painfully real that they can severely disrupt people's lives.

 

This has been the case for Ron Coleman. On the phone from Scotland he told me about when he first started hearing voices.

 

Ron Coleman: I'd just broken my hip playing rugby and after I came out of hospital I went back to work and I was sitting in my office one day and I heard the voice behind me say, you've done it wrong. And I looked behind me and there was nobody there. From then on it got worse, and worse, and worse, I wasn't hearing one voice I was hearing two, then three. And eventually I was hearing six and that led me into hospital, the voices are so intense and they always pick on the bits of us that are our weaknesses. They leave us feeling as if we are worthless and hopeless and we become victims of that, really.

 

Lynne Malcolm: And they were all distinctly different voices were they?

 

Ron Coleman: Oh yeah, they were very different. I heard a voice say 'it was your fault, you led me into this sin, you deserve to burn in hell.' And that was the voice of a priest who was my abuser when I was a kid.

 

Lynne Malcolm: You were abused by a priest as a kid?

 

Ron Coleman: Yep, I heard his voice really clearly and he was probably the most distracting of my voices. I also heard the voice of my first partner who died and she would say things like, kill yourself, we can be a family again. And that became a real hard part of my life and eventually I just couldn't cope with it anymore and I broke down totally.

 

Lynne Malcolm: And she actually committed suicide, didn't she, your first partner?

 

Ron Coleman: Yep.

 

Lynne Malcolm: And do these voices sound like they're very separate to you; they're not coming from you somehow?

 

Ron Coleman: No, and I hear them externally, I don't hear them inside my head, I hear them outside. It's almost like I'm hearing you now I would hear it through my ears.

 

Lynne Malcolm: Ron Coleman, who now champions the International Hearing Voices Network which we'll hear more about later. Although Ron Coleman has experienced abuse and trauma in his life, and most of his voices are frightening and destructive, that's not always the case.

 

David Copolov: About a third of the people said that they would miss the voices if they disappeared, and a considerable number of those people said that the voices were helpful and guiding. But on the whole the voices that occur in the context of psychiatric illness are critical and cause the hearer to be distressed.

 

Lynne Malcolm: David Copolov is professor of psychiatry at Monash University and for twenty years worked at the Mental Health Research Institute in Melbourne. He and his colleagues did a large study into the cause and treatment of auditory hallucinations. And they were particularly keen to capture the subjective experience of those who hear voices, to get under their skin, as he put it.

 

David Copolov: An example might be someone who hears voices most of the day and they might have derogatory connotations about the person being a bad person and sexually misbehaving when they're not. The voices are intrusive, sometimes it can lead them to want to harm themselves and you can't talk the person out of it. So that the voices can be very, very distressing and can colour and flavour their lives such that they are unable to work, they're unable to engage in normal social relationships because of these derogatory malevolent voices causing the person considerable distress.

 

Lynne Malcolm: And how often would a negative auditory hallucination like that urge people to behave in ways that they wouldn't normally behave? For example, lead them to violence?

 

David Copolov: Well these are so-called command hallucinations and about 70% of people with schizophrenia have auditory hallucinations and about half of those have command hallucinations. And in a significant number those command hallucinations tell a person to do something – either dangerous to themselves or dangerous to others. And there've been many cases in the newspapers of, for example, mothers killing their children because the voices have told them to do so. In 2003 there was an example of Lucas Thomas, who climbed into the lion's enclosure in the Buenos Aires zoo because the voice of God had told him to taunt the lion. Fortunately no harm came from that but the voice was so compelling that he had to do what to everyone is an extremely dangerous thing.

 

The person who murdered the Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindt in 2004, Mijailo Mijailovic, said that he heard voices telling him that he had to kill the much-loved Swedish minister, and there was no vendetta but the voices had told him that that's what needed to happen.

 

Lynne Malcolm: Professor David Copolov. Thankfully not everyone who hears voices is driven to such behaviour but, living with these intruders, no matter how extreme, can severely disrupt people's lives.

 

Lyn Mahboub was 15 when she first heard voices – she was told she'd had a nervous breakdown and to go home and rest. In the following years she struggled with mental illness and was diagnosed with various conditions including depression, bi-polar disorder and psychosis. But a common symptom throughout was this sense of voices in her head.

 

Lyn Mahboub: What has happened on and off in my life is more of a hearing thought, so it's not an auditory experience for me, it's like hearing thought and it's very negative dialogue. I call it the interpreter that sort of interprets a lot of the interactions that I might have with people.

 

Lynne Malcolm: Why do you call the distressing side of these experiences the interpreter?

 

Lyn Mahboub: I guess each person that has these kinds of experiences over time finds meaning or their own understanding, and for me certainly the interpreter is a good description really of what it's doing because it appears to interpret various situations that I'm in, where I might be feeling paranoid or distressed and it gives me this account for what's happening.

 

Lynne Malcolm: Give me an example?

 

Lyn Mahboub: Well I might – my recent example was it'll say, you know, 'jump off a bridge, there's a good bridge, you're not worth it. This person is about to attack you', it's difficult to describe because at the time it's very distressing so I'm not totally taking full note of what's happening. People talk about command voices, for me they're not command voices they are just this negative dribble in the background and the fact that it exists is what is so distressing for me.

 

Lynne Malcolm: And does it feel like it's part of you or does it feel like it's coming from somewhere else?

 

Lyn Mahboub: I think that's the key, Lynne, is that very much, a lot of the time it feels like it's not part of me. And that's the negative aspects of what I hear and what I experience. Also I have a positive aspect to what I hear, it's what I call channelling and certainly that very much doesn't feel like me. I have information come through about things that I wouldn't ordinarily know.

 

Lynne Malcolm: Is the information usually correct?

 

Lyn Mahboub: A lot of the time it is very correct yes. When it comes to the distressing, disturbing, what I call the interpreter, that's kind of debatable and that's perhaps it's not a correct assessment of a particular situation.

 

Lynne Malcolm: So going back to that example you gave me about the voice telling you, or the thoughts telling you to jump off the bridge, in what context was that? Were you under particular stress?

 

Lyn Mahboub: Yes, yes, I was away in a different city of Australia, I was feeling particularly stressed by what I was doing at the time, it just got more and more and more in terms of severity. And I didn't feel in any way compelled to act on it, it's a bit like having somebody I guess in the room telling you awful things, you just think oh, go away, I don't really want to hear this right now. And the fact that it was happening in my head is what's distressing and it feels as though I'm starting to get unwell again, so of course there's an element of fear about it.

 

Lynne Malcolm: So have you ever taken medication?

 

Lyn Mahboub: Yes, I've taken anti-depressant medication and anti-psychotic medication and for the most part I've had a lot of reaction to the various medications. I have a sensitivity now to medication and I've got to be very careful – for example at one point in time I had HRT medication and that induced hallucinations or, you know, voice-hearing experiences in quite a severe way. Both internal and external, like most of my experience I would explain as internal, the experience of hearing things and getting information. But at different times when I was in hospital I would have the external experience. You know, mistake people for being in the room when they weren't in the room because I thought I was hearing them speak.

 

Lynne Malcolm: Whereas your internal experience, you know that they are thoughts in your head?

 

Lyn Mahboub: Well it feels to me as though the thoughts come into my head, that's the way I hear, I hear it with my inner ear if you like.

 

Lynne Malcolm: Lyn Mahboub, who is now a mental health advocate in Western Australia. You're with All in the Mind on ABC Radio National, Radio Australia and via podcast. I'm Lynne Malcolm: exploring the experience of hearing voices.

 

I woke up and they were in there

They didn't settle in, they moved in on me

I made room for them and offered them a cup of tea.

They raided the fridge, scattered bits of food on the floor

I sat in the corner, they rearranged the furniture around me

And crowded in on me

I tried to join them but they weren't having of it

They pushed me to the wall and stamped around loudly

So I turned on the radio, they smashed it and played with the pieces

I tried ignoring them but they wouldn't get out of my way

In the end, I gave up and went to bed

And when I woke up they were in there. (Joe Twist)

 

Lynne Malcolm: Psychiatrist David Copolov's study on auditory hallucinations drew from personal accounts and brain imaging data and he found that individuals' experience varies enormously. So where does this melee of characters and conversations in people's heads come from? What happens in the brain to determine the content of the hallucination? David Copolov.

 

David Copolov: We think of voices maybe as a distortion of auditory memories, we have memories of things that we've heard and things that have been said to us and it's our current conceptualisation that these voices are replayed, but in a very real sense of auditory memories and a distortion of these auditory memories feeding in to the regions of the brain that process hearing.

 

Lynne Malcolm: So could you tell me a little bit more about what we know about what happens in the brain with auditory hallucinations?

 

David Copolov: Well a series of studies by our group and others has shown that during hallucinations there are regions of the brain that become active. And those regions commonly involve the regions of the brain, the temporal lobe under the temple that are associated with the processing of normal sounds. So it's as if the brain is being tricked, or the person is being tricked into believing that these voices are actually occurring because there's spontaneous activation of these hearing regions of the brain. There is also activation of regions of the brain, especially the hippocampu,s that are associated with the processing of memory, which is why we believe it's a combination of reactivation of memories with the false perception of external or internal voices.

 

Have you heard of phantom limb syndrome, where a person who might have had an amputation can feel their arm or leg even though the leg has been amputated? It's the part of the brain that is deprived of input from that region of the body, the brain responds to a lack of input by activity. So in hallucinations, auditory hallucinations, even though we've shown that there are subtle abnormalities of the hearing brain but not deafness as such, the evidence is that those base line abnormalities actually give rise to spontaneous eruptions within the dysfunctional hearing brain that then gives rise to this experience of hearing voices.

 

Lynne Malcolm: David Copolov. As we heard earlier, Ron Coleman was harangued by six voices after a cycle of sexual abuse as a boy and later the suicide of his first partner. Events which he says shaped his illness and his life. He spent six and a half years out of the next ten in and out of hospital. His treatments included electro-convulsive therapy and antipsychotic medication, but he emerged from hospital no better.

 

Ron Coleman: I ended up at the end of ten years I wasn't hearing six voices, I was hearing seven voices. So actually I came out of the system in a sense worse than I went in, in terms of the voice hearing experience. Beause the voices never changed, they were always there.

 

Lynne Malcolm: So what was the turning point, because you now manage them very differently? Tell me about what happened to turn you around.

 

Ron Coleman: I was in Manchester, I was in hospital and I heard a support worker who suggested that I went to this new group that was just forming in Britain called the Hearing Voices Network. Even at the very first meeting it made sense to me, a woman said to me, do you hear voices? And I said yes, and she said they're real. And as I thought about that it became clear that for years I'd been told they weren't real and I had to ignore them and therefore I was powerless, I couldn't do anything about it. And now somebody was saying to me, this experience is real so you have to do something about it, there's no point waiting for other people to do something for you. And then I started going more and more to the self-help group, to the Hearing Voices group.

 

Lynne Malcolm: Since then Ron Coleman's life has improved, because he's learned about alternative ways to manage his voices.

 

Ron Coleman: Yeah, I think it's about understanding why the voices are there. It's very easy to take a position that they're there because of some chemical imbalance and yet all those charts shows that about 70% of voice hearers can relate their voices directly to what happened in their lives.

 

Lynne Malcolm: You were getting similar messages though, weren't you, over and over again from these six or seven voices. Are you able to constantly learn by that?

 

Ron Coleman: It wasn't always the same thing. I've a voice that I call teacher, I have ongoing discussions with that voice about all sorts of things. And in a sense when I have major decisions to make now I would discuss it with my voices in exactly the same way you would discuss it as an internal dialogue in your own head.

 

Lynne Malcolm: So is there a sense that the voices can be helpful for you now?

 

Ron Coleman: Oh very much so, I mean through the group and through working on issues in my own life I was able to take control over the voices and experience and get on with my life. Married, got children, done all the things that I really wanted to do but was unable to do through that period of pain when the voices had control.

 

Lynne Malcolm: Ron Coleman has championed the Hearing Voices Network in the United Kingdom and plans to visit Australia later this month to help develop the network here. He's also written a number of books on hearing voices and you can check our website for details.

 

Even though medication and hospitalisation didn't help Ron Coleman much, most people seek treatment when the voices become difficult to manage. David Copolov.

 

David Copolov: Well by far the most important planks in treatment are the relationship with a therapist, talking about the voices, and medication. There is no doubt that the most effective treatment for psychotic symptoms including hallucinations is anti-psychotic medication. Although in about 25% of the people with hallucinations that are the result of a psychotic disorder, that medication isn't going to reduce the voices to a sufficient level. And in terms of psychological therapies, we've looked at cognitive behaviour therapy and what we call acceptance therapy to help people cope and to do two things: one, accept the reality of the hallucinations in the sense that they are occurring to the person, and two, trying to help them avoid unsuccessful coping strategies such as yelling and shouting back at the voices and helping them adopt other approaches that might allow them to cope with the voices more successfully.

 

Lynne Malcolm: The Mental Health Research Institute in Melbourne has established a free voices clinic for people who are distressed by their voices. They teach them coping strategies like these.

 

David Copolov: First of all trying to help a person understand other explanations for their voices. Sometimes, say, with command hallucinations, a person will feel that they really have to follow what the voice is telling them, otherwise immense harm will come to them. And so in the clinic there will be a testing of that theory and trying to encourage a person to not follow the voices and to find out that the consequences of not following what the voices say is not anywhere near as catastrophic – or is in fact not a problem at all. So in a sense, challenging the voices, keeping a diary in terms of the frequency of the voices and the things that cause the voices to get worse.

 

For example sleep deprivation, or using cannabis can actually make the voices worse, and being in a situation of stress, and if you can reduce the stress, or you can improve factors in a person's life or develop strategies for reducing those stresses and subsequently the voices.

 

Lynne Malcolm: David Copolov. The Hearing Voices Network was initiated by a Dutch psychiatrist, Marius Romme, in the early 90s, after one of his patients, Patsy Haig, impressed on him that the distressing voices she was plagued by were not a figment of her imagination – they were real. Together the doctor and patient went on a television chat show and were overwhelmed by audience response. After further research Marius Romme was convinced that validation of the voice hearer's experience and support from others can play a crucial role in people's recovery.

 

Lyn Mahboub has just returned from a Voice Hearers conference in the UK.

 

Lyn Mahboub: I mean I think that's one of the key things that people say is it was so refreshing for people to say yes, I experience it too. Your experience is real because traditionally the understanding was if someone was hearing voices or seeing things that it was a hallucination or a delusion, that it was not a real experience. But it's very real for the person who's having the experience. I know for myself when I'm feeling terror, my body responds with adrenalin, with sweaty palms, with everything, it's a very, very real experience. And I guess sharing this with other people you learn more new coping strategies of how to manage your voices and the experiences that you're having, so that you can reclaim life and get back on with things.

 

Lynne Malcolm: Can you tell me a little bit more about the coping strategies, besides sharing your experiences with others, that have the same experience, what are some of the coping strategies that you notice people use and what have you used to help you on the path to recovery?

 

Lyn Mahboub: Well some, just to list off a couple of things, a lot of the time people have negotiation with the voices. They might have structured time techniques, which is whereby you will listen to the voices at a particular time throughout the day and then you ask them to leave you alone at the rest of the time of the day so that you can go to work and do various other activities. Also voice dialogue is one of the things that people might do, whereby another voice hearer, or a worker, will sit and actually have a conversation with the person's voices. One voice hearer that I spoke to, she had been working with her voices quite successfully in some ways but then developed blackouts, and she went to the doctor and was diagnosed that she had something like atypical epilepsy.

 

So her partner engaged in dialogue with one of her voices. Through these kinds of conversations the voice was able to explain to her that there was a new voice who didn't understand the way in which to communicate. This other voice then taught the new voice how to do so in a way that was going to be productive for them all, and subsequent to that the blackouts stopped and she was able to get resolution. So by talking about the voices and getting a better understanding of exactly what's being said and why it's being said, the person is more able to manage the experience of hearing voices. Because a lot of the time living with the experience of hearing voices produces certain effects such as social withdrawal, anxiety and various other difficulty in having conversations and things like that. So through managing the voices, those kinds of effects which are often misunderstood as symptoms of an illness, you know, can be better worked with and navigated.

 

Everybody's different and I think that's the beauty of the groups, is that there's...for some people some coping mechanisms will be absolutely perfect. For other people that one might not work, but something else will, so the idea of sharing what works for them, and particularly for people that are living with voices in the community that haven't become patients, they've got a lot to offer, and that's why we encourage all voice-hearers to come forward and be involved in the networks.

 

Lynne Malcolm: I believe as part of the Hearing Voices Network, which is well and truly established in the UK but also I think growing here, one of the successful strategies some people who hear voices have used is to get others to have a dialogue with their voices, or even to get the voices to speak with each other. What do you think of this sort of approach and what might the mechanism be there?

 

David Copolov: Where we can get an explanation for voices and where we can normalise the experience, for example after bereavement there's been some important studies, a study of Sweden in the early 90s showed that about 30% of people in the year following the death of their husband or wife will either see or hear their loved one and that gives them some solace. So what the Voices Network is doing with information about the frequency with which people actually hear voices in the general community, is trying to normalise the experience. In fact that's also what we're trying to do with our studies on brain imaging of hallucinations. If a person knows that it's not just as your program says 'all in the mind', that there is in fact a biology, there's activation of the brain regions which make it clear to a person that they are hearing voices, even though there's no-one around.

 

Giving a biological explanation is in fact very reassuring. It is essentially a way of normalising that experience. And as we said before, a lot of people who hear voices don't have a psychiatric illness, some people hear voices in the context of being spiritualist, or of being an evangelical Christian. And there are, of course, many examples in history where people have heard voices, famous people have heard voices such as Joan of Arc and Socrates. In psychiatry there has been a tendency to have what I call a check-list approach to psychiatric symptoms, where you just register that a person has delusions, or hallucinations and once you've ticked the boxes you can then make a diagnosis.

 

Well, we're much more interested in the inner experience of what it is like to have voices and you have no idea how helpful people felt the process was to have a detailed understanding of their experience with hallucinations. So I think for example having the voices network established in Australia is a great idea.

 

Lynne Malcolm: Professor David Copolov of Monash University who's just received a major award from the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists for his work on auditory hallucinations.

 

The voices in my head will speak

Like a classroom when the teacher leaves or pets left alone and hungry

But they're only there because they've got me to listen to them

The voices in my head will not be quiet

Not until I am. (Joe Twist)

 

Lynne Malcolm: I noticed a picture of you on the website when you were in Italy wearing a T-shirt, 'I hear voices and they don't like you'.

 

Ron Coleman: Yeah, I'm known for things like that. I also have a tattoo on my arm that says 'psychotic and proud'.

 

Lynne Malcolm: Oh really.

 

Ron Coleman: I guess that's just the way I am.

 

Lynne Malcolm: Ron Coleman, of the Hearing Voices Network in the United Kingdom. And you can contact the Australian Hearing Voices Network through the Richmond Fellowship in Western Australia.

 

The poetry in today's show is written by Joe Twist and read by John Jacobs.

 

For further information, links and references about this and past programs go to abc.net.au/rn and choose All in the Mind in the program list. And don't forget you can listen to or download the audio of our past four shows there too.

 

Thanks to producer Pauline Newman and sound engineer Jenny Parsonage. I'm Lynne Malcolm, and next week Natasha Mitchell will be back in the presenter's chair. So thanks for your company on All in the Mind this year, it's been a real pleasure. Bye for now.

Guests

 

David Copolov

Professor of Psychiatry Senior Advisor to the Vice Chancellor Monash University Winner of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists 2006 Organon Senior Research Award

 

Lyn Mahboub

Consumer Consultant (QBE) Director Hearing Voices Network Australia Richmond Fellowship WA

 

Ron Coleman

Mental Health Consultant "Working to Recovery" Fife, Scotland

Further Information

 

Hearing Voices Network Australia (Richmond Fellowship WA) info on workshops and contacts

[Tarantism]

voices whisper in my crazy *** ear all the time. i dont complain, i got the best advise i have ever had from one of them.

[DarkColoredLight]

So hearing a guy scream for his life when you're about to go to sleep is completly normal. Phew, I have nothing to worry about.

 

 

In all seriousness, the only time I ever remember "hearing things" was when I heard this beatiful distorted guitar solo play in my head. I don't think I've ever heard anything quite like it, and wish I would of picked up my guitar and tried to play it out. The mind is a weird thing.

[Tarantism]

well there are good ones and then there are bad ones. yin and yang man.

[EWright]

There's an interesting article on this subject today on the FoxNews website. It seems there are more "perfectly normal" people who hear voices, than psychologists previously realized. It's just that they don't seek psychotherapy because they don't see it as an issue. Researchers are looking for people with this condition to further their study.

 

Here's the link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,214055,00.html

[DarkColoredLight]

I've heard this is called channeling and can be done by just about anyone.