The Voices Within: The History and Science of How We Talk to Ourselves (Wellcome Collection) - Hardcover

Charles Fernyhough

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1781252793 ISBN 13: 9781781252796

Publisher: Wellcome Collection, 2016

Synopsis

We all hear voices. Ordinary thinking is often a kind of conversation, filling our heads with speech: the voices of reason, of memory, of self-encouragement and rebuke, the inner dialogue that helps us with tough decisions or complicated problems. For others - voice-hearers, trauma-sufferers and prophets - the voices seem to come from outside: friendly voices, malicious ones, the voice of God or the Devil, the muses of art and literature.

In The Voices Within, Royal Society Prize shortlisted psychologist Charles Fernyhough draws on extensive original research and a wealth of cultural touchpoints to reveal the workings of our inner voices, and how those voices link to creativity and development. From Virginia Woolf to the modern Hearing Voices Movement, Fernyhough also transforms our understanding of voice-hearers past and present.

Building on the latest theories, including the new 'dialogic thinking' model, and employing state-of-the-art neuroimaging and other ground-breaking research techniques, Fernyhough has written an authoritative and engaging guide to the voices in our heads.

Published in partnership with the Wellcome Collection.

WELLCOME COLLECTION

Wellcome Collection is a free museum and library that aims to challenge how we think and feel about health. Inspired by the medical objects and curiosities collected by Henry Wellcome, it connects science, medicine, life and art. Wellcome Collection exhibitions, events and books explore a diverse range of subjects, including consciousness, forensic medicine, emotions, sexology, identity and death.

Wellcome Collection is part of Wellcome, a global charitable foundation that exists to improve health for everyone by helping great ideas to thrive, funding over 14,000 researchers and projects in more than 70 countries.

wellcomecollection.org

About this title

Review:

An elegantly written survey of contemporary scientific research into the inner dialogues we all conduct every day ... Moving ... persuasively unravels connections between the voices we hear inside and the words we say out loud, and shows that the conversations we have with ourselves can be as interesting and revealing as those we have with others. (Nick Rennison Sunday Times 2016-04-10)

Intriguing (Salley Vickers Observer 2016-04-24)

A lucid, authoritative survey of our current knowledge ... The author's investigations, at once scientific and humane, represent the discipline of psychology at its rare best. (Raymond Tallis Wall Street Journal)

An intriguing and deeply humane book... particularly good when addressing the role of inner voices in creativity ... In The Voices Within, [Fernyhough] has again rendered complicated mental experience without losing its human texture. (Casey Schwartz New York Times Book Review)

Profound and eloquent (he is a novelist too), Fernyhough presents an intriguing array of fresh findings and perspectives. He makes a persuasive case that one of the most inti­mate and private of our mental activities has a social origin. We talk to ourselves because we talked to others first. (Douwe Draaisma Nature 2016-04-07)

Compelling ... it does reassure those of us who worry that we have a chorus of voices jabbering in our heads. It turns out we're not mad, or even odd, but simply lucky enough to have a second - or thirdm or fourth - opinion always on call to help. (Kathryn Hughes Mail on Sunday 2016-05-01)

Fascinating and elegantly humane ... [Fernyhough's] book is refreshingly interdisciplinary in its insistence that philosophy and literature are going to be just as important investigative tools for this subject as clinical psychology and brain scan ... illuminating (Steven Poole Guardian 2016-05-28)

Throughout Charles Fernyhough's fascinating tour d'horizon he collapses many similar oppositions: between data and feelings, speaking and listening, external reality and our inner lives. These perspectives may not all resolve into a single viewpoint, but like the voices that constitute our thoughts, they are brought into stimulating and fruitful conversation. (Mike Jay Literary Review 2016-04-01)

In his eye-opening new book, Charles Fernyhough explores this inner speech, revealing what purpose it serves, what it says about us, and what it can tell us about those who experience hallucinated voices. (BBC Science Focus 2016-04-09)

With its extensive illustrations of the creative effects of inner speech and voice-hearing, sane and mad, [The Voices Within] is a thought-provoking and engaging read. (Janet Sayers THE 2016-07-28)

Book Description:

A wide-ranging look at the voices in all our heads, examining how we think and what it means for our lives and sense of self.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wellcome Collection
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1781252793
• ISBN 13: 9781781252796
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352