The voices in my head
5,687,441 views | Eleanor Longden • TED2013
To all appearances, Eleanor Longden was just like every other student, heading to college full of promise and without a care in the world. That was until the voices in her head started talking. Initially innocuous, these internal narrators became increasingly antagonistic and dictatorial, turning her life into a living nightmare. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, hospitalized, drugged, Longden was discarded by a system that didn't know how to help her. Longden tells the moving tale of her years-long journey back to mental health, and makes the case that it was through learning to listen to her voices that she was able to survive.
To all appearances, Eleanor Longden was just like every other student, heading to college full of promise and without a care in the world. That was until the voices in her head started talking. Initially innocuous, these internal narrators became increasingly antagonistic and dictatorial, turning her life into a living nightmare. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, hospitalized, drugged, Longden was discarded by a system that didn't know how to help her. Longden tells the moving tale of her years-long journey back to mental health, and makes the case that it was through learning to listen to her voices that she was able to survive.
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Join a community that spreads non-stigmatizing messages about voice hearing and offers solidarity to those who hear voices.
About the speaker
Eleanor Longden overcame her diagnosis of schizophrenia to earn a master’s in psychology and demonstrate that the voices in her head were “a sane reaction to insane circumstances.”
Suzette Boon et al. | W. W. Norton, 2011 | Book
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John Read et al. | Neuropsychiatry, February 2014 | Article
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Brain changes in people diagnosed with schizophrenia were traditionally believed to be the result of disease or disorder. This pioneering article takes a truly bio-psycho-social approach by showing how childhood adversity can affect neurological development in ways that make individuals vulnerable to psychosis — and raises some profound social and clinical implications.
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Living with Voices: 50 Stories of Recovery
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Philip Thomas and Eleanor Longden | Medical Humanities, 2013
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Intervoice
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Mad in America
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Voice Collective
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Hearing the Voice
Based at Durham University in the UK, Hearing the Voice is an innovative interdisciplinary research group dedicated to exploring voice hearing from a range of perspectives. The team includes academics from the fields of philosophy, cognitive neuroscience, theology and English literature, as well as psychology and psychiatry. A visit is highly recommended to anyone with a scholarly interest in voice hearing.
King's College London, 2015 | Watch
Compassion for Voices
A short animated film outlining compassionate approaches for relating to voices, narrated by me and partly inspired by my TED talk.
Learn more
This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.
Join a community that spreads non-stigmatizing messages about voice hearing and offers solidarity to those who hear voices.