Screaming in Whispers: A dialogue between an expert voice hearer and a shaman/psychologist concerning the mastery of hearing voices

Hearing voices is considered to be one of the defining symptoms of psychosis. Working and mastering such voices has moved from the simplistic attempts of silencing them to engaging masterfully with them. Working with her own... [ view full abstract ]

Hearing voices is considered to be one of the defining symptoms of psychosis. Working and mastering such voices has moved from the simplistic attempts of silencing them to engaging masterfully with them. Working with her own voices as well as currently supporting others with their voices, Debra as an expert voice hearer has applied ways of establishing mastery through relating to the voices, as will emerge in the dialogue. Equally, the shaman seeks to master the relationship with the voices of the ancestors through various techniques. Ingo, a clinical psychologist working with psychosis, and having undergone shamanic training in South Africa has sought to interact with voices in a masterful manner. Differences and similarities of these approaches to voice hearing will be explored through personal stories and interactive dialogue. In this dialogue, the journey of the expert voice hearer and the shaman are related to the overarching structure of Campbell’s hero’s myth, revealing that the ancient and modern journeys of healing and mastery have archaic similarities. The hero’s myth also allows for rich complexities to emerge, a move away from the denigration/denial through medicalization of symptoms and/or the simple idealisation of techniques to the acknowledgement of both dark and light chapters in such a process of mastering voices.