When soft voices die: auditory verbal hallucinations and a four letter word (love)

Abstract

Understandings of auditory verbal hallucinations (also referred to as “hearing voices”), and help for people distressed by them, are dominated by a biomedical framework. Yet, many people who have sought help for the distress and/or impairment caused by hearing voices express dissatisfaction with treatment solely within this framework, highlighting the need for a more rounded, biopsychosocial-spiritual approach. This paper examines the neglected role of a fundamental part of human experience, love, in the experience of hearing voices. First, we argue a lack of love is likely to play a causal role in voice-hearing experiences. Second, we demonstrate that a lack of love is central to the distress and dysfunction often caused by hearing voices. Finally, we show that love plays a core role in recovery. Given this centrality of love, we argue that an interdisciplinary approach to hearing voices involving the mind sciences and theology/religion may be fruitful. The relevance of this for psychotherapeutic interventions for people who hear voices is discussed.

Keywords:

• hearing voices
• psychosis
• schizophrenia

Acknowledgements

Dr McCarthy-Jones’ work on this paper was initially supported by funding from the Durham University Seedcorn Research Fund relating to the Hearing the Voice project, and then by continued funding from a Macquarie University Research Fellowship. We are grateful to Charles Fernyhough and Angela Woods for their comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript, as well to the suggestions of the reviewers of this paper. Dr McCarthy-Jones would also like to thank Durham University's Centre for Medical Humanities for their financial support, and to Professors Jane Macnaughton and Martyn Evans for arranging this.