I Hear Voices

An eerie horror debut about a little boy who recovers from a mysterious illness and inherits an imaginary friend who makes him do violent things... Kids have imaginary friends. Rachel knows this. So when her young son, Billy, miraculously recovers from a horrible flu that has proven fatal for many, she thinks nothing of Delfy, his new invisible friend. After all, her family is healthy and that's all that matters. But soon Delfy is telling Billy what to do, and the boy is acting up and lashing out in ways he never has before. As Delfy's influence is growing stranger and more sinister by the day, and rising tensions threaten to tear Rachel's family apart, she clings to one purpose: to protect her children at any cost--even from themselves. We Hear Voices is a gripping near-future horror novel that tests the fragility of family and the terrifying gray area between fear and love.

The issues surrounding mental health in Australia have for the past year created a great deal of exposure in the media. Andrew Denton's programme Enough Rope recently devoted an entire programme to the problems of Hearing Voices. This book contains a wealth of information of great practical value to people who hear voices as well as to those who simply wish to learn more about this fascinating aspect of human psychology. It also addresses many complex questions regarding personal identity, the nature of consciousness, the relationship between mind and brain and the place of spirituality in human life - issues which will be of interest to all thoughtful readers. John Watkins is an internationally-known and respected counsellor and educator whose main professional interest is in exploring and promoting holistic approaches to the development and maintenance of mental Health. In this latest book, he provides: a detailed description of a wide variety of voice hearing experiences, an overview of the theories accounting for how and why this happens, a range of practical techniques for coping with or stopping voices, guidelines for applying spiritual discernment to hearing voices, and strategies for optimising the personal value of voice hearing experiences.

Provides the evidence to show it's possible to overcome problems with hearing voices and take back control of one's life.

When Claire Bien first began hearing voices, they were infrequent, benign and seemingly just curious about her life and the world around her. But the more attention Claire paid, the more frequently they began to speak, and the darker their intentions became... Despite escalating paranoia, an initial diagnosis of Schizophreniform Disorder and taking medication with debilitating side effects, Claire learned to face her demons and manage her condition without the need for long-term medication. In this gripping memoir, Claire recounts with eloquence her most troubled times. She explains how she managed to regain control over her mind and her life even while intermittently hearing voices, through self-guided and professional therapy and with the support of family and friends. Challenging a purely medical understanding of hearing voices, Claire advocates for an end to the stigma of those who experience auditory verbal hallucinations, and a change of thinking from the professionals who treat the condition.

The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781472453983, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivative 4.0 license. Experiences of hearing the voice of God (or angels, demons, or other spiritual beings) have generally been understood either as religious experiences or else as a feature of mental illness. Some critics of traditional religious faith have dismissed the visions and voices attributed to biblical characters and saints as evidence of mental disorder. However, it is now known that many ordinary people, with no other evidence of mental disorder, also hear voices and that these voices not infrequently include spiritual or religious content. Psychological and interdisciplinary research has shed a revealing light on these experiences in recent years, so that we now know much more about the phenomenon of "hearing voices" than ever before. The present work considers biblical, historical, and scientific accounts of spiritual and mystical experiences of voice hearing in the Christian tradition in order to explore how some voices may be understood theologically as revelatory. It is proposed that in the incarnation, Christian faith finds both an understanding of what it is to be fully human (a theological anthropology), and God’s perfect self-disclosure (revelation). Within such an understanding, revelatory voices represent a key point of interpersonal encounter between human beings and God.

A comprehensive exploration of the history, phenomenology, meanings and causes of hearing voices that others cannot hear (auditory verbal hallucinations).

The experience of 'hearing voices', once associated with lofty prophetic communications, has fallen low. Today, the experience is typically portrayed as an unambiguous harbinger of madness caused by a broken brain, an unbalanced mind, biology gone wild. Yet an alternative account, forged predominantly by people who hear voices themselves, argues that hearing voices is an understandable response to traumatic life-events. There is an urgent need to overcome the tensions between these two ways of understanding 'voice hearing'. Simon McCarthy-Jones considers neuroscience, genetics, religion, history, politics and not least the experiences of many voice hearers themselves. This enables him to challenge established and seemingly contradictory understandings and to create a joined-up explanation of voice hearing that is based on evidence rather than ideology.

In this insightful book, accounts of voice hearers are presented, evaluated and interpreted by a Christian theologian and psychiatrist. By listening to the first-hand experiences of voice hearers and evaluating them in the light of Christian theology, the book enables the reader to understand the experiences of voice hearers as a part of Christian experience and to engage with the theological issues raised by them, including the nature of revelation. This engaging and thought-provoking collection looks at a range of stories - ranging from comforting to complex to simply conversational - to encourage debate and search for meaning and also show how the reader can adapt clinical and pastoral practice to better aid people in this situation.

Unique book providing support and solutions. It is in two parts, one part for voice-hearing children, the other for carers.

Did You Hear That? Help for Children Who Hear Voices is about five very different children who share one thing in common — hearing voices and seeing things that are not there.Susie is a 9-year-old who keeps her challenges with auditory and visual hallucinations a secret until a teacher alerts her parents of her difficulties at school. With compassion, empathy, love and understanding, Susie's parents encourage her to see a counselor. Susie builds trust and rapport with her counselor, which finally allows her to share her well-guarded secret. After divulging what has been troubling her for years, with her counselor's help, she discovers that she is not the only one in the world who struggles with voices.Susie then introduces readers to four other children of different ethnicities, ages, backgrounds, talents and interests who also hear voices. All of the children share with readers their challenges with voices and personal life circumstances that contributed to them hearing voices. Then they go on to speak about their personal choices regarding what role they want voices to have in their lives and how counselors helped them achieve their individual goals.Did You Hear That? is a beautifully illustrated practical therapeutic storybook for psychologists, psychiatrists and mental health practitioners treating children with auditory and visual hallucinations. While it normalizes the experience and assists children in seeking professional help, it is also an easy to understand and user-friendly guide for concerned parents, teachers, pediatricians and allied health professionals.