Du symptôme à la différence : "entente de voix" et expériences exceptionnelles

International audienceTraditionally considered psychopathological auditory-verbal hallucinations, the voices heard by patients, but also by many people from the general population, are currently the subject of much attention from researchers, clinicians and public authorities. One might think that voice hearing is a psychopathological experience that has little to do with parapsychological phenomenology, except when information is ostensibly acquired paranormally under the form of a voice. But paranormal and spiritual interpretations of voices are ubiquitous in many studies of voice hearing, and even are outstanding examples of salutogenic appraisals of psychotic-like experiences. The research on the type of appraisal along the axes of internal / external or personal / impersonal provides direct guidance on clinical intervention strategies. No longer focusing on the 'what' but rather on the 'how' of these experiences helps to avoid some biases relative to the assessment of beliefs-especially unusual beliefs-in the clinical setting. In this paper, I first describe the genesis of the Hearing Voices Movement, as presented by the Dutch psychiatrist Marius Romme, and then selected research is reviewed on these anomalous experiences. I argue that parapsychology has much to learn from the Hearing Voices Movement, and vice versa. The change of perspective on voice hearing-from a symptom to an individual difference-may be generalized for all exceptional experiences, as the late Rhea White had begun to establish with her Exceptional Human Experiences Network. This leads us to consider how parapsychological research is used by people searching for meaning due to their exceptional experiences, and conversely how researchers attempt to normalize these experiences. How to maintain a clinical approach of exceptional experiences when facing a discourse that disqualifies their psychopathological approach? As the figurehead of the broader movement of "recovery," the Hearing Voices Movement offers a competitive clinical practice, but failed to provide a true differential clinical practice starting from a neutral name referring to several psychopathological pathways that need to be distinguished