ABSTRACT
This chapter defines and discusses some key features regarding voice hearing. Not all voices, nor everyone who hears voices, are experienced as difficult or distressing. But for those who do struggle with voice hearing, it can be incredibly difficult and can lead to feeling overwhelmed and incapable of managing the usual routines of daily life. Voice hearing is about relationships, and, in this chapter, readers are introduced to this as a central theme of this book. People who hear voices attend to both their internal world with their voices and their external world with other people. These dynamic and relational interactions can typically be experienced as challenging and perhaps overwhelming but are the central focus for change through the guided application of several approaches throughout this book. This chapter draws to a close with an account of one of the author’s (Ruth Lafferty (RL)) experiences of how she first began to hear voices.
