An Exploration of Multilinguals’ Voice-Hearing Experiences
Language and Psychoanalysis May 15, 2022 Rachel Rowan Olive, Jean‐marc Dewaele 2 citations
Multilingual people who hear voices often experience voices in languages they do not fully understand, challenging the dominant theory that voice-hearing arises from misattributed inner speech. In-depth interviews with ten multilingual voice-hearers in the UK, analyzed using constructionist reflexive thematic analysis, reveal a spectrum of such experiences with complex emotions and subtle distinctions. The relationship between language experiences, voices' languages, and associated emotions is intricate and individual: voices can both reflect and distort or shift the contexts, domains, interlocutors, and feelings linked to each language. These findings have implications for therapeutic and peer support for distressed voice-hearers and open new avenues in voice-hearing phenomenology and aetiology.