‘Schizophrenic or Occult Harassed?’ A Narrative Study of an Autobiographical Text about Auditory and Visual

This article analyses a first-hand account written by a male voice hearer. He believed that he was exposed to black magic, while psychiatric staff diagnosed him as schizo-phrenic. Narrative analysis of the voice hearer’s text revealed important knowledge, unrevealed if only the content of the text had been analysed. The voice hearer wanted to initiate dialogue with his readers, including professionals such as social workers. They should not simply dismiss a person as schizophrenic before listening to the story of one troubled by his voices. This study offers one possible way of using language within social work to communicate with the client about his condition. KEY WORDS: hallucinations hearing voices narrative, recovery schizophrenia social work user perspective voice hearing