Rights statement: This article has been accepted for publication in Medical Humanities, 2021 following peer review, and the Version of Record can be accessed online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2020-011940 © Authors (or their employer(s)) OR “© BMJ Publishing Group Ltd” ( for assignments of BMJ Case Reports)
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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Person-ness of voices in lived experience accounts of psychosis
T2 - Combining literary linguistics and clinical psychology
AU - Semino, Elena
AU - Demjen, Zsofia
AU - Collins, Luke
N1 - This article has been accepted for publication in Medical Humanities, 2021 following peer review, and the Version of Record can be accessed online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2020-011940 © Authors (or their employer(s)) OR “© BMJ Publishing Group Ltd” ( for assignments of BMJ Case Reports)
PY - 2021/9/30
Y1 - 2021/9/30
N2 - In this paper, we use concepts and insights from the literary linguistic study of story-world characters to shed new light on the nature of voices as social agents in the context of lived-experience accounts of voice-hearing. We demonstrate a considerable overlap between approaches to voices as social agents in clinical psychology and the perception of characters in the linguistic study of fiction, but argue that the literary linguistic approach facilitates a much more nuanced account of the different degrees of person-ness voices might be perceived to possess. We propose a scalar Characterisation Model of Voices and demonstrate its explanatory potential by comparing two lived-experience descriptions of voices in interviews with voice-hearers in a psychosis intervention. The new insights into the phenomenology of voice-hearing achieved by applying the model are relevant to the understanding of voice-hearing as well as to therapeutic interventions.
AB - In this paper, we use concepts and insights from the literary linguistic study of story-world characters to shed new light on the nature of voices as social agents in the context of lived-experience accounts of voice-hearing. We demonstrate a considerable overlap between approaches to voices as social agents in clinical psychology and the perception of characters in the linguistic study of fiction, but argue that the literary linguistic approach facilitates a much more nuanced account of the different degrees of person-ness voices might be perceived to possess. We propose a scalar Characterisation Model of Voices and demonstrate its explanatory potential by comparing two lived-experience descriptions of voices in interviews with voice-hearers in a psychosis intervention. The new insights into the phenomenology of voice-hearing achieved by applying the model are relevant to the understanding of voice-hearing as well as to therapeutic interventions.
U2 - 10.1136/medhum-2020-011940
DO - 10.1136/medhum-2020-011940
M3 - Journal article
VL - 47
SP - 354
EP - 364
JO - Medical Humanities
JF - Medical Humanities
SN - 1468-215X
IS - 3
ER -