Can't You Hear Them? The Science and Significance of Hearing Voices By Simon McCarthy-Jones. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. 2017. £13.99 (pb). 376 pp. ISBN 9781785922565

This book sets out to examine the nature of ‘voice-hearing’, both distressing and uncomplicated ‘voice-hearing’. It emphasises the importance of context in the experience of verbal hallucinations by illustrating how verbal hallucinations are experienced in context, and how the experience is given meaning and value. So, for example, for one person voices may be understood as arising from overwhelming emotions and for another person, voices may be a consequence of sex assault or trauma.

The biological underpinnings of verbal hallucinations are not ignored nor minimised but there is always an undercurrent of criticism of psychiatry: ‘To be clear, the issue here is not that psychiatrists prescribe antipsychotic drugs to help with voice-hearing. As we have seen, for some people this is indeed helpful. The issue is why some psychiatrists still tell their patients that antipsychotic drugs correct a chemical imbalance’ (p. 231). The goal seems to be to make both a metaphorical and pragmatic space for the Hearing Voices Movement's approach to verbal hallucinations. In order to further this aim a distinction is also drawn between psychological therapy for verbal hallucinations and the approach of the Hearing Voices Movement. This distinction is described as having ‘a more explicit focus on any emotional problems that may underlie the voices and in emancipating and empowering voice-hearers’ (p. 283).

This book is not exactly a Hearing Voices Movement manifesto but in the latter sections it becomes more explicitly a crusading text. It challenges what counts as evidence, makes the point that psychological services are starting to take account of the Hearing Voices Movement's ideas but that psychiatrists are slow on the uptake. And asks what the relationship of the Hearing Voices Movement with biology will be in the future given the belief that voice-hearing ought to be celebrated.

In summary, this book fully summarises what we know about the biological underpinnings of verbal hallucinations. It makes a cogent case for psychiatrists taking far more seriously the values and views of people who hear voices whether or not the experience is embedded within signal features of severe mental illness.