Illuminating the heterogeneity of voices in a multiple perspectives research paradigm

摘要

Drawing from data collected during a series of expert interviews, this paper is written as a theoretical reflection on recent trends in research on voices (i.e. auditory verbal hallucinations). Researchers seem to perceive two concurrent paradigm shifts taking place in their field: voices are increasingly (1) decoupled from assumptions of schizophrenia and studied across numerous diagnostic categories, and (2) decoupled from assumptions of pathology and conceptualized in terms of neurodiversity. Despite these differences, informants seemed to share the impression that the study of voice-hearing increasingly fosters, and even necessitates, collaboration between people from diverse disciplinary and experiential backgrounds. Since the depathologization of voices has helped facilitate these collaborations, these two trends (depathologization and collaboration) reinforce each other and are arguably part of a single broader shift that transgresses traditional disciplinary divides.