Voices of Reason, Voices of Insanity: Studies of Verbal Hallucinations [Paperback]

Ivan Leudar (Author), Philip Thomas (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0415147875 | ISBN-13: 978-0415147873 | Publication Date: June 22, 2000 | Edition: 1

Records of people experiencing verbal hallucinations or 'hearing voices' can be found throughout history. Voices of Reason, Voices of Insanity examines almost 2,800 years of these reports including Socrates, Schreber and Pierre Janet's "Marcelle", to provide a clear understanding of the experience and how it may have changed over the millenia. Through six cases of historical and contemporary voice hearers, Leudar and Thomas demonstrate how the experience has metamorphosed from being a sign of virtue to a sign of insanity, signalling such illnesses as schizophrenia or dissociation.

They argue that the experience is interpreted by the voice hearer according to social categories conveyed through language, and is therefore best studied as a matter of language use. Controversially, they conclude that 'hearing voices' is an ordinary human experience which is unfortunately either mystified or pathologised.

Voices of Reason, Voices of Insanity offers a fresh perspective on this enigmatic experience and will be of interest to students, researchers and clinicians alike.

Editorial Reviews

Review

[Leudar and Thomas] are able to establish some useful principles for separating hallucinated voices from usual social discourse. [Voices of Reason, Voices of Insanity] exhibits good cohesiveness...I suspect that it may become a classic of psychological literature. I would recommend it to anyone who works with individuals who hallucinate..
–John J. Haggerty, Jr., M.D., Psychiatric Services, A Journal of the American Psychiatric Association, March 2003

This is an extremely interesting book in that it presents an historical overview of the way that voice hearing experiences have been written about, described, experienced and debated. It culminates with recent data that the authors (a psychologist and a psychiatrist) have collected on modern day voice hearers accounts of their voices in terms of pragmatic analysis of their characters.
–Journal of Coginitive Psychotherapy: An International Quarterly, Fall 2001

About the Author

Ivan Leuder is Reader in Psychology at the University of Manchester. Philip Thomas is a Consultant Psychiatrist with Bradford Community Trust and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Bradford.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (June 22, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415147875
• ISBN-13: 978-0415147873
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,507,121 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Are 'voices' really a sign of madness?, June 15, 2000

By 

Paul (Spain) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Voices of Reason, Voices of Insanity: Studies of Verbal Hallucinations (Paperback)

In this challenging book, psychologist, Ivan Leudar traces voice-hearing and its interpretations through 2,800 years of history. Through six cases of historical and contemporary voice-hearers. Leudar assisted with some contributory chapters by psychiatrist Philip Thomas demonstrates how the direct experience has been changed from being a sign of virtue to being a sign of insanity, signaling 'psychosis' or 'schizoprenia'.

Leudar asks the question if the experience should be taken out of the hands of psychiatry and rehabilitated as a normal, although uncommon human experience.

Leudar lists an impressive number of historically significant voice hearers, including Soctates and Pythagoris. Pointing out that voices were implicated in the religious conversions of St. Augustine and Hildegard of Bingen. Other voice hearers like Galelio, heard the voice of his dead daughter or threatening voices like Daniel Paul Schreiber ( a nineteenth century German judge) who heard voices that boomed abuse at him.

The conclusions that Leudar draws from this fascinating study is that hearing voices is no more insane than other psychological faculties; such as thinking or imagining or seeing. Leudar and Thomas conclude that:

- In general voices are very ordinary and relate to ongoing activites (as with ordinary inner speech). - The voices are typically orientated towards the voice hearer, without direct access to each other or to other people. - Voices typically do not force voice hearers to do things, rather they influence voice hearers' decisions on how to act (an important differentiation) - Voices are not persons in the sense of being capable of reflection - there could be no voices who hear voices. - Most importantly, voice hearers do not mistake 'hallucinatory' voices for other people thinking. They follow, publicly available reality testing procedures to establish their status.

The authors locate the main problem of what voice hearers themselves make of the experience as being one that is caught between 'the rocks of mysticism and pathologisation'. The issue then is a political one and the resolution is to bring back voice-talk back into ordinary everyday life.

This book flies in the face of accepted theories about the meaning of voices and represents an important contribution to the debate about the meaning of voices and indeed mental illness.

A 'must read' for voice hearers and interested professionals wanting to discover a new perspective on this troubling and egmatic experience