Finding the Context of our Voices From Wildflower Alliance
Voice hearing can be a very startling experience, especially at the beginning. The problem is not hearing voices itself but the difficulty with navigating the experience. In our hearing voices groups we learn the voices make sense in relation to our life’s experiences and can be interpreted and understood in the context of our life events and our interpersonal narratives.
This process of understanding and accepting one’s voices may be more helpful for recovery that continual suppression and avoidance. Peer support and collaboration is empowering and beneficial for recovery Something that we find very helpful is understanding the context of the voices, such as:
The ages of the voices might point to significant life events.
Critical voices might echo a negative message we have received in the past.
The voices might sound like lost loved ones.
For veterans especially, voices of people you were in combat with (including enemy combatants or people killed while deployed).
Other examples of the context of the voices include:
Protector voices or spiritual guides that come at a critical point.
A voice that holds past distresses in certain situations.
A voice that serves as a reminder of an anniversary of an event.
Cultural and/or spiritual symbolism.
Voices starting in the year after a major trauma.
In order to help people articulate, better understand and cope with their experiences group members ask one another questions like:
What do the voices say?
What tone do they use?
How many different voices are there?
Are they male or female?
Have they changed over time?
Are there certain situations when they’re most likely to appear?
How do you feel when they are there?
What purpose do you thing they serve?
“Encouraging this kind of detailed contextual analysis helps people to make sense of experiences that have often baffled or terrified them. And because there is no judgment, no covert message that voices are pathological, people feel, often for the first time in their lives, that they can reveal what is happening inside of them.”
-Hornstein and Dillon, 2013
