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dc.contributor.authorCook, Christopher C.H.
dc.date.accessioned2023-09-01T14:49:36Z
dc.date.available2023-09-01T14:49:36Z
dc.date.issued2023
dc.identifierONIX_20230901_9780567708007_7
dc.identifier.urihttps://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/76116
dc.description.abstractThis open access book explores unusual perceptual, or perception-like, experiences. These are often meaningful to those who have them and may be sympathetically or unsympathetically interpreted by others. One interpretation, especially when voices are associated with unusual behaviour, is that they are evidence of mental disorder. Ostensibly such interpretations are sympathetic (showing concern for someone who is ill) but in practice they are used to deny the meaning and value of the experiences for those concerned, thus depriving them (and others) of creative and innovative ways of understanding the human condition. The question is thus one of the meaning. Are such experiences meaningful only as indicators of a diagnosis, or are they meaningful in other ways, shedding light on human self-understanding and perhaps even a wider spiritual reality? Psychiatry has tended to see such phenomena as diagnostically meaningful but not as sources of deeper insight into the human condition. This book takes three 14th century examples of women who heard spiritually significant voices: Margery Kempe, Julian of Norwich, and Joan of Arc. Each of these women, in different ways, has left an enduring legacy in literature and history. Modern psychiatric commentary on the voices that they reported has generally focussed on diagnosis rather than on wider questions of meaning. These commentaries will be used as a lens through which to consider how contemporary psychiatric practice might be enriched by the humanities and enabled to find a more spiritually empathetic, if not also sympathetic, enriching and meaning enhancing perspective on unusual mental phenomena. The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by The Wellcome Trust.
dc.languageEnglish
dc.subject.otherhearing voices
dc.subject.otherspiritual voices
dc.subject.othermental disorder
dc.subject.otherreligious experience
dc.subject.othermedieval voice hearers
dc.subject.otherpsychiatric perspectives
dc.subject.othertheology and spirituality
dc.subject.othermeaningful psychiatry
dc.subject.otherJoan of Arc Pattern
dc.titleHearing Spiritual Voices
dc.title.alternativeMedieval Mystics, Meaning and Psychiatry
dc.typebook
oapen.relation.isPublishedBy066d8288-86e4-4745-ad2c-4fa54a6b9b7b
oapen.relation.isbn9780567708007
oapen.relation.isbn9780567707994
oapen.imprintT&T Clark
oapen.pages152
oapen.place.publicationLondon


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