There is increased recognition of a need to better understand and explain non-ordinary experiences and spirituality at different levels and consider their potential implications and applications for improving mental health. An important question in this context is: Do individuals who report psychotic-like experiences (e.g., hear voices), but do not find them distressing and do not have a...
AbstractThere are communities in which hearing voices frequently is common and expected, and in which participants are not expected to have a need for care. This paper compares the ideas and practices of these communities. We observe that these communities utilize cultural models to identify and to explain voice-like events—and that there are some common features to these models across...
That trauma can play a significant role in the onset and maintenance of voice-hearing is one of the most striking and important developments in the recent study of psychosis. Yet the finding that trauma increases the risk for hallucination and for psychosis is quite different from the claim that trauma is necessary for either to occur. Trauma is often but not always associated with...