Voices in the head: What helps against the phenomenon | Sunday paper

voices in the head

It was “a horror experience“, says Annelie Bentis (not her real name): “My thought voice had constantly turned into other people’s voices.” For example, if she thought, “I still have to go shopping,” she heard it in her head in a neighbor’s voice.

Sometimes it was the voice of a movie star. That went on for seven years. Annelie Bentis found it horrifying to hear strange voices. Added to this was the fear of stigmatization:

“I mightn’t talk to anyone regarding it.”

Mental illness

According to Björn Schlier from the Institute for Clinical Psychology at the University of Hamburg, between three and seven percent of all people in Germany hear voices. Mental illnesses such as psychosis are among the main causes.

According to Schlier, “hearing voices” can be very stressful. For example, because these voices give unwanted instructions or have offensive content.

Diagnosis of schizophrenia

For a long time, Annelie Bentis didn’t know what was wrong with her: “I was diagnosed with schizophrenia when I was 22.” It started for her when she was 18 years old.

Today, the young woman from the Palatinate suspects that there are serious traumas behind her illness. By that she means above all “hours of psychological torture” by her ex-husband, whom she married at the age of 18.

Eventually she began to work through her trauma. Annelie Bentis says that with the help of therapy she was able to free herself from her voices.

Experiences of a convalescent companion

Anna Helm (name changed) supports people who hear voices as a recovery companion. When she was first confronted with the fact that there are people who hear voices, she was “very alienated”, the 72-year-old admits.

Anna Helm is mentally ill herself, she suffers from depression.

“A woman from our group for people who hear voices once, as she was walking along the freeway, was constantly told by a voice to throw herself in front of a car,” reports Anna Helm.

For another member of the group, voices would have forbidden doing sports. Anna Helm also says that voice hearers suffer from what goes on in their heads and fear stigma:

“Many are afraid to leave their homes because they look at them funny when they use their voices.”

Inner voices in the Christian religion

Voices are not unknown in the Christian religion, says Jörg Urbschat, a Protestant theologian from the Seevetal community in Lower Saxony. Urbschat is not only a theologian, but also a trained “vision seeker”.

In the “vision quest” the participants deal with issues related to survival in the great outdoors both practically and spiritually. Urbschat offers seminars on this.

The participants are asked to enter into a dialogue with nature. Some tell of hearing a “voice” of nature.

statements from experts

At the Aachen University Hospital, the psychosomatic specialist Klaus Mathiak deals with hearing voices. In his experience, people with chronic hallucinations don’t necessarily want to get rid of their voices.

“They just want to be better at handling it.”

This can also be achieved through psychotherapeutic methods.

Thomas Mann, psychiatric nurse and sociotherapist in Lübeck, has been dealing with the phenomenon of hearing voices since 2010. For quite a few people it is completely normal to communicate with their voices, says the coordinator of the Lübeck “Network of Hearing Voices”.

“For others, the voices are so torturous that they are almost driven to suicide.”

Even they can manage to live amicably with the voices of “tenants” in their heads.