ABSTRACT
In our culture voices represent something that is to be feared. For ordinary people the experience has become inextricably bound up with unpredictability, being out of control and the general issue of danger. The reasons for this are complex, but in Chapter 8 we will see that the media play a significant part in generating this message. Society regards psychiatry as being the appropriate technology for dealing with the problems posed by the experience of voice hearing, and in Chapter 6 we examined the response of psychiatry and clinical psychology. Psychiatry talks about voices as verbal and auditory hallucinations, a symptom of psychosis to be controlled and dissipated with medication. Yet significant numbers of people appear to gain little or no benefit from medication. Besides, the very act of giving and taking medication implies that the participants in the exchange share a common perspective on the significance of voices: that the experience is understood in terms of mental illness. In reality the extent to which this perspective is shared is debatable, because psychiatrists are ultimately empowered to coerce their patients into accepting medical interpretations of their experiences. Those who doubt this should remember that at the time of writing, the British government has set up a review body to make recommendations about changes to the Mental Health Act. It seems highly likely that this will result in the introduction of even more coercive legislation, in the form of community treatment orders, to ensure that people who stop taking their medication when out of hospital can be given medication against their wishes in the community.
