One study described someone who was suffering ongoing sexual abuse by a violent relative, who heard the relative's voice telling them to commit suicide. Other studies report examples of the voices being the abuser. For example, a study of the psychiatric files of incest survivors found examples of a man and woman who had suffered sexual abuse as young children who heard voices accusing them of sleazy behavior. Four studies of adults using mental health services found that the content of at least half of the voices of people who were physically or sexually abused as children was related to the abuse. Negative voices are often related to adverse life events. Perhaps the most obvious, and common, example of voices being meaningful are studies showing that most people over 60 who lose a life partner, will hear or see their partner soon after their death. For some the voices start as imaginary childhood friends and for others the first voice arrives much later in life.Ī common feature, however, is that most voice hearers, when asked, ascribe meaning to their voices, and reject the notion that they are meaningless expressions of a chemical imbalance or some other supposed biological dysfunction. Some hear just the one voice, others hear many.

For some the voices are of people they know. Others hear only good voices, supporting and reassuring them. There are many ways in which hearing voices varies, aside from frequency. Then I realized he had just come to say goodbye, and it didn't matter whether he really was there or I was imagining it. Despite many years of working as a clinical psychologist to help people make sense of their voices, my first thought was: I'm going crazy. The day after my friend died in a car accident, years ago, he spoke to me. I am one of those who has only heard voices once in their life (so far). Although less than 1 percent of the population receive this diagnosis, international surveys, in different cultures, find that about one in eight people experience auditory hallucination at least once in their life. Psychiatry's diagnostic bibles, the American DSM-5 and the World Health Organization's ICD-10, portray auditory hallucinations as symptoms of a mental disorder called schizophrenia, which most psychiatrists believe is caused by biochemical and genetic factors rather than a meaningful response to life events and circumstances. Within mental health services, however, the prevailing medical model means some practitioners pay attention only to their presence, not their meaning. Like dreams, they can usually be understood in terms of one's life experiences. Hearing voices that other people can't is a meaningful experience.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Auditory hallucinations icd 10