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The Voices Within: The History and Science of How We Talk to Ourselves

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The Voices Within: The History and Science of How We Talk to Ourselves

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Overview

A luminous exploration of the nature of thoughts, from daydreams to the voices in our heads

At the moment you caught sight of this book, what were you thinking? Was your thought a stream of sensations? Or was it a voice in your head? Did you ask yourself, "I wonder what that's about?" Did you answer? And what does it mean if you did?

When someone says they hear voices in their head, they are often thought to be mentally ill. But, as Charles Fernyhough argues in The Voices Within, such voices are better understood as one of the chief hallmarks of human thought. Our inner voices can be self-assured, funny, profound, hesitant, or mean; they can appear in different accents and even in sign language. We all hear them-and we needn't fear them. Indeed, we cannot live without them: we need them, whether to make decisions or to bring a book's characters to life as we read. Studying them can enrich our understanding of ourselves, and our understanding of the world around us; it can help us understand the experiences of visionary saints, who might otherwise be dismissed as schizophrenics; to alleviate the suffering of those who do have mental health problems; and to understand why the person next to us on the subway just burst out laughing for no apparent reason.

Whether the voices in our heads are meandering lazily or clashing chaotically, they deserve to be heard. Bustling with insights from literature, film, art, and psychology, The Voices Within offers more than science; it powerfully entreats us all to take some time to hear ourselves think.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780465096800
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	10/04/2016
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	618,633
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Charles Fernyhough is a writer and psychologist. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Pieces of Light, shortlisted for many prizes, and A Thousand Days of Wonder. He directs Hearing the Voice, a project on inner voices based at Durham University. He lives in County Durham, United Kingdom.

1 Funny Slices of Cheese 1

2 Turning Up the Gas 15

3 Inside the Chatterbox 29

4 Two Cars 43

5 A Natural History of Thinking 57

6 Voices on the Page 75

7 Chorus of Me 91

8 Not I 111

9 Different Voices 119

10 The Voice of a Dove 135

11 A Brain Listening to Itself 151

12 A Talkative Muse 167

13 Messages from the Past 189

14 A Voice That Doesn't Speak 209

15 Talking to Ourselves 225

Acknowledgments 249

Notes 251

Index 293

From the B&N Reads Blog

Page 1 of

Editorial Reviews

In an earlier book…[Fernyhough] took on memory, building an artful case for the intensely improvised, subjective way we recall the experiences that make up our lives. In The Voices Within, he has again rendered complicated mental experience without losing its human texture, as so often happens when psychological questions are addressed in the lab. To go about his investigation, he proceeds like a man walking slowly around a sculpture, studying it from every angle…[Fernyhough] is particularly good when addressing the role of inner voices in creativity…The Voices Within is an intriguing and deeply humane book…

The New York Times Book Review - Casey Schwartz

08/01/2016
Academic psychologist Fernyhough (Pieces of Light), whose previous fiction and nonfiction works have explored ideas of memory and consciousness, here dives deeply into “what it is like to inhabit our own minds.” Fernyhough proposes the theory of “dialogic thinking,” explaining that “focusing on the voices in our heads as internal dialogues” can help us understand our inner lives in new ways. Citing published experiments, his own anecdotal experiences, and religious and literary texts, he makes a thought-provoking case not only for his theory, but also for the idea that although “inner speech” requires language, it functions outside of linguistics—it unifies the brain in “a way not specific to any sensory channel.” Though the book is not about creativity per se, one of its highlights is its fascinating insight into the process of artistic creation, particularly writing. In another high point, the narrative gently prods readers into a wider and more empathetic view of pathologies such as aural hallucinations. Fernyhough’s book is a valuable addition to the literature surrounding the unending human quest to understand the location—and the creation—of the self. Agent: George Lucas, Inkwell Management. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"Talk to yourself? We all do, all the time, and the voices persist even when you'd rather they shush. The 'inner voice' is becoming a prime-time topic in brain studies, and Fernyhough's book is a solid entry in the discussion. It provides enough science to ground the argument, but the real achievement here is the writing. The author is a psychologist and a novelist, and his prose has a narrative feel that separates it from most books on the psych shelf."—David DiSalvo, Forbes.com, Best Brain Books of 2016

"Fernyhough has built up an interesting picture of inner speech and its functions." —Jerome Groopman, New Yorker

"In The Voices Within, [Fernyhough] has rendered complicated mental experience without losing its human texture, as so often happens when psychological questions are addressed in the lab.... [It's] an intriguing and deeply humane book."

"A must-read for those seeking to understand the voices in their heads."—Discover

"The author's investigations, at once scientific and humane, represent the discipline of psychology at its rare best.... After reading The Voices Within, you may never again be quite as thoughtless about the fact that you think."—Raymond Tallis, Wall Street Journal

"The Voices Within...intriguingly challenges conventional assumptions about the self as unified and coherent, while also posing the question: how might that which we deem pathological be shaped by the mores of our times?"—Christine Gross-Loh, Guardian, Best Books for Summer 2016

"[Fernyhough's] account is fascinating, not only for the ideas he raises but also for his vignettes of historical thought and research."—Lancet

"This sophisticated and appealing work scrutinizes a tangled topic with aplomb and will leave readers permanently observing their own thought processes differently. Perfect for readers of Oliver Sacks and Malcolm Gladwell." —Booklist, starred review

"Fernyhough's book is a valuable addition to the literature surrounding the unending human quest to understand the location—and the creation—of the self." —Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

08/01/2016
This book explores the deep intellectual and social roots of the phenomenon of "hearing voices." Fernyhough (psychology, Durham Univ., UK; Pieces of Light) describes the concept of "inner speech" as a specific type of thinking which forms an integral part of the human experience with many beneficial effects. Initial chapters cover the theoretical background of his "Dialogic Thinking" model using an array of sources from philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and other fields. Diverse research findings and applications are discussed including the experiences of children with imaginary friends, novelists and creative artists, sports figures, and religious visionaries, as well as schizophrenics. References reflect the author's own research and experience in the UK but also include international citations. The inherent intellectual difficulties and controversies in this area are acknowledged, although progress in brain-scanning techniques may reinforce the "scientific" nature of inner speech. The author also grapples with stigma issues associated with voice-hearing and the nature of schizophrenia itself. VERDICT This expansive review offers a stimulating blend of theory, research, and insight on inner speech and voice hearing that will complement more prevalent behaviorist and biomedical perspectives. It may best suit readers with a background in psychology/psychiatry literature.—Antoinette Brinkman, formerly with Southwest Indiana Mental Health Ctr. Lib., Evansville

Library Journal

2016-08-02
From Joan of Arc to Brian Wilson, throughout history, people have reported hearing voices in their heads. But where do they come from?Fernyhough (Psychology/Durham Univ.; Pieces of Light: How the New Science of Memory Illuminates the Stories We Tell About Our Pasts, 2013, etc.) examines the phenomenon of “inner voices,” which manifests in two broad components: the more or less ordinary business of talking to oneself and the more fraught existence of voices inside one’s head. “For many reasons,” he writes, “inner speech is the predominant mode in which we communicate with ourselves, just as external speech is our default channel for interacting with others.” The fact that we verbally direct ourselves to act, and that we do so in language rather than some other form of symbol, is of interest in and of itself, the more so because inner speech can interact with the brain in what would seem to be contradictory modes—the brain at rest, in other words, and the brain at work on executive tasks, modes that are more or less binary. “The words in our head can control and direct,” writes the author, “but they can also fashion fantasies and dream of other realities.” These fantasies can be the province of the potentially less healthy voices in our heads, which are another matter entirely. Fernyhough examines the latest science on inner voice/inner speech, some of which has come from his own lab, and he looks at the history of efforts to understand it in psychological and epistemological contexts. The narrative is straightforward and accumulative, though sometimes his best observations are those made almost in passing, as when he notes that private speech “happens more when there is the illusion of the audience”—i.e., when the person talking is sure to find a receptive listener inside the head. Of rarefied interest, to be sure, but with much to say about how the brain works at the interface of thought and language.

Kirkus Review

The Voices Within: The History and Science of How We Talk to Ourselves

The Voices Within: The History and Science of How We Talk to Ourselves

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Overview

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About the Author

Table of Contents

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About the Author

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