Lunch Hour Lecture: Why are voices that others cannot hear so powerful?

Voice-hearing is reported by approximately 70% of individuals with schizophrenia-spectrum diagnoses, but a sizeable minority cope well with such experiences. A key factor is the hearers’ perceptions of the power of the voices. In this talk, I report on a study of how 10 voice-hearers, with diagnoses of schizophrenia, describe their interactions with their voices. I show that the precise ways in which the voices attack or, more rarely, bolster, multiple aspects of the hearer’s sense of self are key to how the voices exercise power. I suggest how this kind of analysis might feed into existing therapies of voice-hearing. Speaker: Zsófia Demjén, Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at the UCL Centre for Applied Linguistics Date: Tuesday 8 October 2019 UCL's popular public Lunch Hour Lecture series has been running at UCL since 1942, and showcases the exceptional research work being undertaken across UCL. Lectures are free and open to all.