Professor Charles Fernyhough (Director, Hearing the Voice) and Dr Peter Moseley (Post-Doctoral Research Associate, Hearing the Voice) present a short talk and interactive session on

An important scientific theory about why people hear voices explains it in terms of inner speech: the ordinary silent conversation that people have with themselves. According to this theory, individuals hear voices when they produce some inner speech but, for some reason, do not recognise it as their own. In this event, Professor Charles Fernyhough (Project Director) and Dr Peter Moseley (Postdoctoral Research Associate in Psychology) we will consider some problems with the inner speech account of hearing voices, and describe some of the scientific work that is being done in Hearing the Voice to develop and refine the theory.

Further information
This event is part of the linked programme of events around Hearing Voices: suffering, inspiration and the everyday, a major exhibition on voice-hearing produced by Hearing the Voice and Palace Green Library.

About Hearing Voices: suffering, inspiration and the everyday

Hearing a voice in the absence of any speaker is one of the most unusual, complex, and mysterious aspects of human experience. Typically regarded, as a symptom of severe mental disorders such as schizophrenia, voice-hearing is increasingly recognized as an important part of many people’s lives and experience, as well as a phenomenon that has had profound significance, not only for individuals, but across communities, cultures, and history.

From the revelatory and inspirational voices of medieval mystics to those of imaginary friends in childhood, and from the inner voices of writers as they craft their characters to the stories of people from the international Hearing Voices Movement, this exhibition will explore the complexity and diversity of the experience and interpretation of voice-hearing.

This exhibition draws on the work of Hearing the Voice, a large interdisciplinary study of voice-hearing based at Durham University and funded by the Wellcome Trust.

Hearing Voices: suffering, inspiration and the everday will be installed at Palace Green Library, Durham, UK from 5 November 2016 to 26 February 2017.

For more information please see the exhibition website.