Hearing Voices

People tend to think that hearing voices, or other atypical experiences that play with your sense of reality, means you have a brain disease. If that’s the case, then what’s the use of therapy?

In fact, there’s no evidence to back up these assumptions beyond what can be attributed to stress, trauma, and other factors.

Approximately 7–10% of the general population identifies as having had experiences of hearing things others could not, and are never in need of mental health services in the first place. Further, those who report hearing voices also tend to have extensive histories of developmental trauma and/or poor lifestyle habits (nutrition, sleep, drug use, etc.).

Hearing voices can usually best be understood as a dissociative experience, that may or may not be due to actual brain damage. Voices often represents parts of you that otherwise are unbearable to tolerate as “me.”

Trauma-informed therapy can help you to learn to get to know these voices, instead of fearing them or feeling controlled by them. It can help you slowly learn to tolerate the feelings and experiences they may represent and, in turn, to begin processing past trauma.

Dr. Hunter has previously been on the board of directors for both the Hearing Voices Network NYC and HVN-USA, and has written extensively on the topic of hearing voices, dissociation, and trauma. She also supervises trainees and provides training workshops on working with individuals who hear voices and/or experience other atypical phenomena.

If you are interested in seeing if therapy might be helpful for you, please contact us to see if we might be a good fit.

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