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I want to add two things that aren't directly related to the article, but which might contribute to further discussion. First, there's an anthropologist who's found that the stereotypical, combative voices are only universal (among a small sample) to the American/western participants in her study.[1] In cultures that offer alternate explanations for them ("spirits" or such), the voices are much more frequently friendly or even helpful. Second, but less rigourous, that "new approach" mentioned in the Stanford article sounds remarkably like how someone one of my high school teachers knew handled his own voices: he did have trouble with them for a while and wound up needing to take a break from the handyman outfit he (if I recall correctly) ran with his brother. Eventually, though, his therapist recommended he stop trying to push the voices away completely, and the next time my teacher saw him, a few years later, he was back working again, and just telling people "if you hear me talking as I fix your porch, it's not to you." It's not my own depiction, but I like the idea that part of why the voices here get so aggressive is that we're dead set on denying their reality -- if we try to ignore them, they just shout louder until we can't ignore them. And, as this article shows, the way we cast someone's voices as controling or, at the very least, setting the course of their life doesn't do anybody any favors when that leads so easily to feeling like they're subject to the voices' whims. [1] https://news.stanford.edu/2014/07/16/voices-culture-luhrmann... |