People suffering from schizophrenia may hear “voices” – auditory hallucinations – differently depending on their cultural context, according to new Stanford research.

In the United States, the voices are harsher, and in Africa and India, more benign. [W]hile many of the African and Indian subjects registered predominantly positive experiences with their voices, not one American did. [T]he U.S. subjects were more likely to report experiences as violent and hateful – and evidence of a sick condition.

“The work by anthropologists who work on psychiatric illness teaches us that these illnesses shift in small but important ways in different social worlds. [C]ultural variation is important and can teach us something about psychiatric illness,” said Luhrmann, an anthropologist trained in psychology.

Moreover, the Americans mostly did not report that they knew who spoke to them and they seemed to have 
less personal relationships with their voices, according to Luhrmann.

Among the Indians in Chennai, more than half heard voices of kin or family members commanding them to do tasks.

The idea of forming a relationship with one’s schizophrenia is a fascinating adaptation to what is otherwise so often a traumatic and even terrifying condition.

Top photo via Collective Evolution.
Bottom photo via Stanford News.

From an article by Tanya Luhrmann in the British Journal of Psychiatry quoted text via Stanford News for the full article.