What do you think?
Rate this book
Can't You Hear Them?
The experience of 'hearing voices', once associated with lofty prophetic communications, has fallen low. Today, the experience is typically portrayed as an unambiguous harbinger of madness caused by a broken brain, an unbalanced mind, biology gone wild. Yet an alternative account, forged predominantly by people who hear voices themselves, argues that hearing voices is an understandable response to traumatic life-events. There is an urgent need to overcome the tensions between these two ways of understanding 'voice hearing'. Simon McCarthy-Jones considers neuroscience, genetics, religion, history, politics and not least the experiences of many voice hearers themselves. This enables him to challenge established and seemingly contradictory understandings and to create a joined-up explanation of voice hearing that is based on evidence rather than ideology.
368 pages, Paperback
Published April 21, 2017
18 people are currently reading
52 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 22, 2019
A great exploration of every aspect of hearing voices. History, religion, brain functioning, genetics, medication past and present, support groups, theory, therapy, it's all here. And lots and lots of data. So many studies!
One star off for the anti-psychiatrist ranting.
A wonderful resources for people who hear voices, whether or not they're also afflicted with mental illness. Normalizing, which is very cool.
One star off for the anti-psychiatrist ranting.
A wonderful resources for people who hear voices, whether or not they're also afflicted with mental illness. Normalizing, which is very cool.
June 1, 2021
I really really liked the framing of this book, as someone who has off-and-on hallucinations, including hearing voices. The combination of social/cultural perception and embedding and scientific arguments about trauma origins painted a full picture that felt solid and capable of hanging onto.
February 2, 2019
I initially became interested in the topic of voice hearing while listening to a TED talk about someone who started hearing voices, which was then diagnosed with schizophrenia, hospitalized and drugged to infinity. Not only did it not help her, but it made it much worse. She eventually got into the Hearing Voices Movement (HVM), and with its help, distanced herself from the current psychiatry model, and recovered. I can't quite pinpoint the specific talk, but unfortunately, it doesn't even matter because this story and path are so incredibly common.
In this age, voice-hearing is a symptom of madness. It's the result of a "broken brain", a simple biology misfunction. Fitting with the overall biomedical model of mental illness that is so pervasive today.
Simon's book has 2 major points, with are deeply connected. First is a critique of the current medical model of categorizing and interpreting voice hearing. While I wouldn't say it's his intention, this ends up being a critique of psychiatry as a whole. Much like psychological explanations went too far in the 60s, we're still too tied to biology, suffering from a trend of genetic and biological determinism from the 80s. Advances in neuroimaging techniques made this much worse, giving an impression that we're able to track down pathologies to simple "malfunctions" of the brain, while often they're just brain correlates, and might not be causal.
The second point, is that if we're overemphasizing biology, what are we underemphasizing? He argues that much of voice hearing is connected to trauma. Child abuse alone contributing to around a 1/3 of psychosis. The voices aren't random, and they're clearly meaningful manifestations of one's life. Despite this, this is never taken into account with modern psychiatry. The meaning of the voices are never explored, and everything is sucked into a framework of brain pathology. Not that a neuro and biochemical approach aren't useful, and the author certainly doesn't ignore it, having several chapters dedicated to them alone.
While these are the two major theses, it does touch on a wide range of topics, from the interactions of genes and environment to epigenetics, the relationship with other "mental illnesses" like PTSD and depression, neurodevelopmental models of psychosis, the role of neurotransmitters, the side-effects of antipsychotics, and much more.
Most if not all the claims seemed quite reasonable. There aren't sketchy psychoanalytical interpretations, and evidence is always taken into account. In some instances, to a painstaking degree.
I'll admit that the book isn't the most fun to read. If you don't have a big interest in psychiatry, I'd guess this would be a hard book for most. However, its primary goal isn't to be fun. While interesting, dealing with these topics can easily get tedious at times, but despite it, it's nevertheless captivating as a whole, and the increased understanding one gain's from it is incredibly valuable and fascinating. If you truly want a deep understanding of voice hearing, I doubt there is a better book than this. Simon's experience and knowledge are hard to match.
In this age, voice-hearing is a symptom of madness. It's the result of a "broken brain", a simple biology misfunction. Fitting with the overall biomedical model of mental illness that is so pervasive today.
Simon's book has 2 major points, with are deeply connected. First is a critique of the current medical model of categorizing and interpreting voice hearing. While I wouldn't say it's his intention, this ends up being a critique of psychiatry as a whole. Much like psychological explanations went too far in the 60s, we're still too tied to biology, suffering from a trend of genetic and biological determinism from the 80s. Advances in neuroimaging techniques made this much worse, giving an impression that we're able to track down pathologies to simple "malfunctions" of the brain, while often they're just brain correlates, and might not be causal.
The second point, is that if we're overemphasizing biology, what are we underemphasizing? He argues that much of voice hearing is connected to trauma. Child abuse alone contributing to around a 1/3 of psychosis. The voices aren't random, and they're clearly meaningful manifestations of one's life. Despite this, this is never taken into account with modern psychiatry. The meaning of the voices are never explored, and everything is sucked into a framework of brain pathology. Not that a neuro and biochemical approach aren't useful, and the author certainly doesn't ignore it, having several chapters dedicated to them alone.
While these are the two major theses, it does touch on a wide range of topics, from the interactions of genes and environment to epigenetics, the relationship with other "mental illnesses" like PTSD and depression, neurodevelopmental models of psychosis, the role of neurotransmitters, the side-effects of antipsychotics, and much more.
Most if not all the claims seemed quite reasonable. There aren't sketchy psychoanalytical interpretations, and evidence is always taken into account. In some instances, to a painstaking degree.
I'll admit that the book isn't the most fun to read. If you don't have a big interest in psychiatry, I'd guess this would be a hard book for most. However, its primary goal isn't to be fun. While interesting, dealing with these topics can easily get tedious at times, but despite it, it's nevertheless captivating as a whole, and the increased understanding one gain's from it is incredibly valuable and fascinating. If you truly want a deep understanding of voice hearing, I doubt there is a better book than this. Simon's experience and knowledge are hard to match.
April 21, 2017
My Review:
This eARC was provided by Jessica Kingsley Publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, for which I am not being compensated in any way. All opinions are fully my own.
~ Judi E. Easley for Blue Cat Review
I read about 30 percent of this book quite thoroughly and skimmed the rest of it. I had to be honest with you about that. This book was over my head in understanding of the scientific aspects of the conditions discussed and the treatments proposed. There are large parts of the book that I could understand, particularly in the first 20 percent of the book. The author discussed things in more layman's terms and used a lot of case studies for examples to illustrate his points.
The author is making the point that hearing voices in diagnosed schizophrenia cases is most likely caused by some type of trauma, physical or emotional. He uses many case studies to support his theory before he goes into the ideas of how to treat such conditions.
This book could be helpful to many people struggling with the after-effects of TBI or PTSD, to possibly understand their own conditions and situations. However, it seems like the level of scientific knowledge required to really understand would mean you'd need your doctor on hand to interpret much of it and discuss it with you. Not exactly light reading.
This eARC was provided by Jessica Kingsley Publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, for which I am not being compensated in any way. All opinions are fully my own.
~ Judi E. Easley for Blue Cat Review
I read about 30 percent of this book quite thoroughly and skimmed the rest of it. I had to be honest with you about that. This book was over my head in understanding of the scientific aspects of the conditions discussed and the treatments proposed. There are large parts of the book that I could understand, particularly in the first 20 percent of the book. The author discussed things in more layman's terms and used a lot of case studies for examples to illustrate his points.
The author is making the point that hearing voices in diagnosed schizophrenia cases is most likely caused by some type of trauma, physical or emotional. He uses many case studies to support his theory before he goes into the ideas of how to treat such conditions.
This book could be helpful to many people struggling with the after-effects of TBI or PTSD, to possibly understand their own conditions and situations. However, it seems like the level of scientific knowledge required to really understand would mean you'd need your doctor on hand to interpret much of it and discuss it with you. Not exactly light reading.
May 15, 2025
This was a slow, determined and involved read but one that was highly informative and enlightening.
McCarthy-Jones does an excellent job of scrutinising voice-hearers in every aspect of the sense. We get the medical vs non-medical aspects, nature vs nurture, brain chemistry, trauma response, psychiatric attitudes, pharmaceutical vs therapy interventions vs no intervention.
The first two thirds of the book are quite easy to get through, with easily accessible language and explanation and effective anecdotal covering of the subject from voice hearers themselves. The last third perhaps is a little more involved and is prone to scientific overload especially regarding elements within genetics and brain anatomy, however it remains very interesting.
I'm about to trawl through the endnotes which may take me some time but there may be some really valuable nuggets in there.
A very interesting read indeed.
McCarthy-Jones does an excellent job of scrutinising voice-hearers in every aspect of the sense. We get the medical vs non-medical aspects, nature vs nurture, brain chemistry, trauma response, psychiatric attitudes, pharmaceutical vs therapy interventions vs no intervention.
The first two thirds of the book are quite easy to get through, with easily accessible language and explanation and effective anecdotal covering of the subject from voice hearers themselves. The last third perhaps is a little more involved and is prone to scientific overload especially regarding elements within genetics and brain anatomy, however it remains very interesting.
I'm about to trawl through the endnotes which may take me some time but there may be some really valuable nuggets in there.
A very interesting read indeed.
December 5, 2021
This was an intense but illuminating and sometimes funny look at hearing voices. My only experience of voice-hearing and voice-hearers is in supporting them, as a willing but untrained listener. This book gave me an insight into both the emotional causes and the physical, neurological causes behind them. I admit that a lot of the section on brain function was way over my head and I did skip some paragraphs that were a bit acronym-heavy, particularly around neuro-stimulation. What I really enjoyed was his approach, which was respectful to a voice-hearer's experience and questioning the utility of pure pharmacological views. A well trained psychologist or listener can help, but they shouldn't be seen as a gatekeeper to treatment or understanding, there has to be a balance between that and lived experience. As heavy as some parts were, speaking as a relative novice to voice-hearing, this was still incredibly useful and engaging.
March 24, 2020
4.5 stars
This was sooo good! It was so informative and I learned so much that I've never heard of before about hearing voices and I feel like this book really extended my horizons in that way (and probably made me much more critically aware of the stigma of voice-hearing). It took me a while to read because it is a lot to digest, this was definitely a slow read for me, but worth the effort!
This was sooo good! It was so informative and I learned so much that I've never heard of before about hearing voices and I feel like this book really extended my horizons in that way (and probably made me much more critically aware of the stigma of voice-hearing). It took me a while to read because it is a lot to digest, this was definitely a slow read for me, but worth the effort!
November 13, 2025
Very well written book for understanding voices and how they aren’t just involved in schizophrenia. Did at times feel like the author was talking in circles which I don’t love in scientific writing. LOVED the interviews and stories of the people that do hear voices and it is what made this book stand out.
June 20, 2025
Amazing book to learn more about psychosis and bipolar disorder. Very eye opening and great mix of first hand accounts of the disorder and its impact while also mixing in recent research and scientific advances in the field.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews