Every 25th inhabitant of the Earth regularly hears voices in his head, and at least once in his life more than 40% of people encounter “invisible interlocutors”. This is reported by Newsweek, citing recent research.
At the same time, it is noted that most of them continue to live absolutely normal. To a large extent, this is facilitated by the original approach to the problem, which, in particular, the members of the international group "Intervoice" adhere to. They reject the theory that voices in the head are a sign of mental disorders, and they believe that the problem is not in the very existence of "voices", but in the person's attitude towards them.
“If people believe that their voices are omnipotent, can harm and manipulate them, then they are less likely to cope with it and are more likely to end up as patients with mental disorders. If they have explanations for the voices that help to cope with them, this is the first step to learning how to live with them,”said Eugene Georgatza, senior lecturer at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki.
As an example of the "cohabitation" of a man with voices in his head, Newsweek cites the story of Rachel Wadingham, who first heard the voices of three men during her student days. It seemed to her that some people were talking about how ugly she was, and advised her to kill herself.
When she entered the room where, in her opinion, the men were hiding, the girl did not find anyone. Voices never left her, she gradually stopped communicating with friends, became addicted to alcohol and eventually ended up in a psychiatric clinic. After 8 months of treatment, the voices disappeared, but after the woman stopped taking the medication, they returned.
Now 13 voices "talk" to her, including a sad but impudent 3-year-old child, an angry teenager and a suffering woman. According to Wadingham, they say aggressive and angry things with a sexual connotation, which greatly intimidated her as a child.
When the voices of children and adolescents cannot sleep, she reads them bedtime stories, and when they offer to harm a stranger, she says that she will take care of her safety herself.
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Last October, Georgatsa organized the sixth annual festival for those who hear voices in Thessaloniki. The event was attended by more than 200 people from all over the world, the purpose of the conference is to tell their ways of life with invisible interlocutors. In addition, such events, as well as special groups that exist in dozens of countries around the world, help people feel like full members of society, and not patients.
The basic premise of the exercise is that voices in the head often arise after severe stress or trauma. According to research, people begin to hear them after severe shocks in 70% of cases, while the invisible interlocutor, as a rule, speaks in the voice of the person who caused the injury.
In addition, the voice in the head can symbolize the person himself at the moment when he committed any offense.