Luhrmann Tanya Marie, Chen Xialing Ann, Baumeister David, Peters Emmanuelle
Department of Anthropology, Stanford University, USA.
Department of Psychiatry, UCSF, USA.
Schizophr Bull Open. 2023 Aug 25;4(1):sgad025. doi: 10.1093/schizbullopen/sgad025. eCollection 2023 Jan.
We present a mixed-methods study, from an anthropological perspective, of 22 healthy voice-hearers ie, people who report hearing voices but have no need for clinical care. They were interviewed using the Varieties Of Individual Voice-Experiences Scale (VOICES), a new scale assessing phenomenology, beliefs and relationships with voices, and their emotional and behavioral impact. Despite in many cases hearing voices daily, they report remarkably little distress, with almost all mentioning a positive impact on their life. Most interpreted their voices as spirits, and spoke of learning to understand, to manage, and even to train their experience of communicating with spirits productively. There was, however, considerable diversity in their voice experiences. Some described experiences they seemed to have discovered after starting a practice. Others described reaching for a practice to make sense of unusual experiences. This raises the possibility that cultural ideas about spirit communication may have two effects. On the one hand, they may help those who begin to hear voices involuntarily to interpret and manage their experience in a non-threatening way, through a meaning framework imposed on experiences. On the other hand, it also suggests that cultural ideas about spirit communication may lead some people to identify some thoughts as voices, and to come to feel that those thoughts are generated outside of themselves, through a meaning-framework shaping experiences. This should remind us that the culture-mind relationship is complex. There may be different kinds of phenomena described by individuals as "voices," with practice and interpretation changing how these phenomena are experienced.
我们从人类学角度进行了一项混合方法研究，研究对象为22名健康的幻听者，即那些报告称听到声音但无需临床护理的人。我们使用个体声音体验量表（VOICES）对他们进行了访谈，这是一种新的量表，用于评估现象学、对声音的信念和关系，以及声音对他们情绪和行为的影响。尽管在许多情况下他们每天都会听到声音，但他们报告的痛苦程度却非常低，几乎所有人都提到声音对他们的生活有积极影响。大多数人将他们听到的声音解释为灵魂，并表示学会了理解、管理甚至有效地训练与灵魂交流的体验。然而，他们的声音体验存在相当大的差异。一些人描述了他们在开始某种练习后似乎发现的体验。另一些人则描述了通过某种练习来理解不寻常的体验。这就提出了一种可能性，即关于灵魂交流的文化观念可能有两种影响。一方面，它们可能帮助那些开始不由自主听到声音的人，通过强加于体验的意义框架，以一种无威胁的方式解释和管理他们的体验。另一方面，这也表明关于灵魂交流的文化观念可能会导致一些人将某些想法识别为声音，并开始觉得那些想法是在他们自身之外产生的，这是通过塑造体验的意义框架实现的。这应该提醒我们，文化与思维的关系是复杂的。个体描述为“声音”的现象可能有不同类型，练习和解释会改变这些现象的体验方式。
