An interdisciplinary approach to understanding voice-hearing (United Kingdom)

The Hearing the Voice project in the United Kingdom addresses multifaceted questions about what it means to be hearing voices in the absence of a speaker. It does this by taking an interdisciplinary approach that recognizes the heterogeneity of voice-hearing and its embeddedness in personal, social and cultural contexts. Voice-hearers are involved in every aspect of the work, from narrative research and stigma-tackling public engagement to experimental design and innovative partnerships with National Health Service clinicians and the international Hearing Voices Movement. The project aims to change the public and scholarly conversation about voice-hearing, showing how it is not merely a symptom of mental disorder but rather a rich and complex part of human experience.  

Hearing a voice can be understood as an event in the brain, the manifestation of divine or creative inspiration, or as emotional communication from the past. Culture can profoundly affect what counts as reality, shape how a voice is experienced and influence the meaning-making that happens around it. As such, the humanities offer intellectual technologies that scientific approaches alone cannot provide. 

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