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[telophase]

Hallucinatory voices shaped by local culture.

It's one of the themes in anthropology that culture often shapes illness, wellness, and various conditions, and it's one of the things I find fascinating.

Comments

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Really interesting, thanks. In clinical practice in the US, voices that don't bother you and aren't negatively affecting your life are often not even defined as schizophrenia. But typically people who hear positive voices don't talk back in public or show other signs of what we think of as mental illness. Maybe the people in other countries do, even if the voices are positive...

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I remember reading something a few years back (but I don't remember what--maybe it was on or linked from the Mind Hacks blog?) about how the phenomenon of voices was more widespread than people thought, for the reason that people who hear voices (understandably) don't like to admit it for fear of being labeled crazy.

(I don't hear voices, but what I do hear is Toby's doppelganger opening the garage door and pulling in a few minutes before he arrives home. :D I know it's my brain taking noises I hear from that general direction and constructing something familiar that I'm expecting to hear soon out of that, but it's still slightly creepy when I open the door into the garage and it's empty.)

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Hearing voices is really common. Most people occasionally hear someone calling their name and stuff like that, and many people (who have no mental illness) sometimes hear voices that don't bother them - God, dead relatives, etc.

There's also an event-related phenomenon in which people in life-threatening crises hear voices giving them useful commands or encouragement. They sometimes identify the voices as God, saints, relatives, etc, but sometimes they're just unidentified voices. I think it's a useful form of stress-related dissociation - the voice is their own thought, made easier to "hear" by appearing to be someone else.

When people tell me in assessment interviews that they hear voices, I ask them what the voices say, who they are, if the voices bother them, and sometimes if other people in their family and/or culture hear similar voices. (The same questions I ask if people see spirits or ghosts. That's another "crazy" phenomena that lots of people who are not mentally ill experience.)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I have heard someone calling my name once--I was dating a guy when I was in high school, and he was over at my house when my parents were at work. We were making out in my bedroom, and then I clearly heard the front door shut and a voice call my name. Now, when I'm telling the story in a ghost-story setting, I mention that the guy acted like he heard it, too, as he jumped up off the bed and went into the hall, tucking his shirt in, but in reality it was probably my OMG!! reaction he was keying off of. :)

(At any rate, dude was NOT a good option, so I'm glad the relationship fizzled a few days later!)

I have a friend in town whose mother is diagnosed with some sort of mental illness--I'm not sure what and I don't like to ask out of nowhere--and she's from an Asian country, and part of her illness is that she occasionally believes herself to be someone else, and that she hallucinates people. She is convinced that the people she sees are ghosts, but she takes her medication because she knows the medicine makes the ghosts go away.

My friend's ex-husband once told me it's very creepy to hear that there is a ghost sitting behind you in the car, and my friend says it's very odd to find yourself eating your cereal across the breakfast table from the Buddha! (And I like to bring that up to people who repeat the standup-comedian canard that you only see people who claim to be Jesus and never the Buddha or anyone like that.)

My friend's mom has a long-term plan to return to her country eventually, and I can't help but think that her illness, and certainly her interpretation of it, might slot into the local culture better there. (And she'll be surrounded by her extended family, which should definitely help.)