Hearing the Voice 2. (360G-Wellcome-108720_Z_15_Z)

Hearing the Voice 2 builds on the achievements of Hearing the Voice 1 (2012-2015) by extending our interdisciplinary inquiry into voice-hearing (or auditory hallucinations) into seven new domains. In Voices and the Senses, we investigate the relation between the sensorially varied experience of voice-hearing and both normal and atypical ways of perceiving the world. Voices and Memory integrates medical humanities and cognitive neuroscientific approaches to understanding how voice-hearing is rooted in personal experience. Voices and Creativity explores the role of heard voices in creativity across media and genres. Voices, Language and Communication builds on our approach to understanding voices as communicative acts from social agents. Understanding why some voices cause suffering is our focus in Voices, Emotions and Distress. Voices Across the Life-Course centres on three multidisciplinary longitudinal studies exploring how voice-hearing is shaped by personal, social and cultural acts of meaning-making which change over time. In Voices Beyond the Self, we consider how voices act as social and and political forces across cultures and historical periods. The project will continue our methodological investigation into processes of interdisciplinarity, develop a major new online resource for voice-hearers andclinicians, and pursue an innovative programme of arts-led public engagement.