The Australian Radio programme, All in the Mind, on Hearing Voices

I just listened to All in the Mind, on Hearing Voices. What first occurred to me, was that Ron Colman from The Hearing Voices Network, said that his voices, which initially controlled and overwhelmed him, didn’t understand him, but that some of his latter voices, did understand him, due to better activity and communication, and that this gave him more shared and/or more individual control over the voices.

Another voice hearer, said that her voices were an interpreter, but that they were very negative voices. It's important to realise or consider here, that this is all very much connected or related, to how much we are made to accept, deny, or otherwise have choices, over other people’s (including mental health professionals, and those with much more power than us) interpretations of our experiences, and especially of reality.

It’s important to listen to, or in some ways, to know, or be aware of different interpretations of reality, but this needs to be a collective and an individual or participatory choice, within either a static or changing life-context or process - albeit possibly some kind of objective choice - and both a realistic and a possible understanding, or consideration and interpretation, but it is detrimental to impose this in a way, where it limits our individual and shared potential and understanding.

Understanding, sharing some kind of understanding, and having better, or no hearing voices, is often in this respect, again, also a process of events and learning in one’s life and within other people’s. In order to achieve this, a voice hearer or carer, doesn’t have to immediately accept or believe either the reality, or unreality, of the voices, or to complicate, or oversimplify this too much.

I agree with the Radio programme, that an important part of that, might be learning what makes the voices worse, and especially normalising the voices experiences in some way, because a major problem, is related to other people’s fear, ignorance, and misunderstanding about the voices; and the denial or distortion of, the future and life-wishes of the voice hearer, to thrive, or be free, in some substantial way, from or with the voices.

It is here that I have some disagreements with the programme, because whilst I agree that life-events or memories of that, are in some important ways, influential with voices, I also think that voices are much more to do with people’s future desires and wishes, for freedom, liberation, and equality in their lives, as Ron Colman has also often said and stated in his talks.