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North, Holly (2019) How do individuals make sense of positive voice hearing experiences?: an interpretative phenomenological analysis. Doctoral thesis, London Metropolitan University.
Approaches to voice hearing have primarily and historically been driven by a medical model of psychiatry. Recognition of the limitations of this approach has led to increasing awareness and development of new approaches to understanding voice hearing that Counselling Psychology (CoP) is well placed to address.
The study addressed the lack of research exploring the subjective experience of voice hearing from the voice hearer’s perspective, particularly of positive voice hearing experiences.
Five participants, all of whom had positive voice hearing experiences were recruited from hearing voices groups across England.
Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to explore how individuals make sense of their positive voice hearing experiences.
There were three superordinate themes identified from the IPA: “Engaging in a complicated world: The voice in repetition or reparation of relational trauma”, “Response-ability, in interpretation and action” and “Fracturing identities: The self and society’s acceptance of voice hearing”.
Three main findings were identified from the analysis: 1) Participants experience a relationship with their voices, which could both compensate for and repeat, experiences of relational difficulties, 2) finding meaning in the voice hearing experience is of fundamental importance for the participants and 3) there is a complex interplay between society and the individual in the acceptance and understanding of voice hearing experiences.
The study supports the argument for a paradigm shift away from the médicalisation of distress towards a focus on the meaning and understanding of human experience from an individual and interpersonal context.
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