News review: a review and commentary on media coverage on the issue of hearing voices
Last updated 31/08/2007
On this page we will be looking at the way the news media covers issues related to hearing voices.
We often come across references to hearing voices in news stories. Sometimes though, the references are incidental or peripheral to the main point of the news item and for this reason we have not added them to our other news pages.
Until now that is!
We will be keeping an eye on the broader news coverage concerning hearing voices and related subjects in the popular press and elsewhere. You can help us by letting us know of any news items you you come across, just fill in the reply form at the bottom of the page.
Windows to the past: Aging Holocaust survivors relive torment as minds crumble
(Extract)
Source:Los Angeles Times, 28/08/2007
As people age and their grasp on the present weakens, events from the distant past can seem as real as today. For those who lived through severe early trauma, the memories that rush back are often of their most harrowing experiences.
Psychologist Marla Martin met with Kane over the course of nearly three years as the woman's depression and anxiety gave way to a psychotic break fraught with paranoia and auditory hallucinations.
Even pleasant events took on dark overtones for Kane, as the voices in her head reminded her of all she had witnessed and lost.
In October 1998, Martin wrote in her case notes that Kane's "daughter Esther gave her two nice blankets, and this started a problem for her. She was feeling guilt because of the Holocaust and the voices telling her to share the blankets. How could she have two nice blankets?"
Teen says he heard voices
(Extract)
Source: Rocky Mountain News, 25/08/2007
Michael Fitzgerald said he has been hearing voices since he was in 7th grade. One is the voice of his best friend who died in a car accident, and the other the father he admitted he helped murder.
"They tell me to hurt myself," Fitzgerald said.
Fitzgerald concluded his testimony Friday in the Jefferson County District Court trial of his friend, Michael Tate, who is charged with first-degree murder in the bludgeoning death of Fitzgerald's father, Steven Fitzgerald, 41.
The little film that could
(Extract)
Source: The Age (Australia), 17/08/2007
This partly stems from Burke's struggle with schizophrenia, a condition that the film never directly attributes to him. "That was the hardest decision about the entire film - do we show him taking pills or have someone make reference to it," admits Torr, whose mother is a family therapist who deals with psychiatric issues involving children. Torr experienced a delusional episode as a 22-year-old, after smoking potent marijuana, which gave him a hint of what schizophrenia sufferers struggle with.
"I just started hearing voices. I always thought I was in control of my mind, but I had no control whatsoever," he recalls.
"If it was ongoing it would have driven me insane. It's not hearing the voices, it's how you deal with them. I was shocked about how you can't be in control of something that's inside of you."
Sisters get into the spirit of spooky business
(Extract)
Source: Camden Advertiser, (Australia), 15/08/2007
Ms McDougall said: ``My eldest daughter was having nightmares and ... having a lot of difficulties sleeping.
``She even talked about hearing voices and chattering in her bedroom. I had her checked by a psychologist because I was quite concerned but everything was fine.
``I spoke to Angela about it and she suggested doing a ghost query.
``She said she found about nine spirits and thought there was a `vortex' in the house.''
Ms McDougall said after Angela helped the spirits cross over her daughter started to sleep better and the voices disappeared.
Ms McDougall said she is now a ``60 per cent believer'' as opposed to the sceptic she used to be.
Angela Bramble said she would never remove a spirit that was happy and was not causing any trouble.
A toxic legacy
(Extract)
Source: Inquirer (Philippines), 10/08/2007
A once-powerful and wealthy man with many friends in the United States and the Philippines, MJ’s (Mario Crespo, aka Mark “MJ” Jimenez) sole contacts while in prison, says his eldest son Virgilio “Ilie,” were members of his family and his mistress. But his isolation did not bring an end to his fantasies and illusions of grandeur, insisting to all and sundry that he would be president of the Philippines someday, “prompting other inmates to call him ‘El Presidente.’
MJ came home to the Philippines in 2005. His long-time partner Carol says she immediately noticed a change in him, his mental instability becoming worse with the “voices” in his head growing louder. He would eventually found the Hulog ng Langit Foundation. He was only obeying the “voices,” he would tell his family, and even warned Carol that “if the voices tell me to kill you, I will kill you!”
As his mental state deteriorated, relates Ilie (and Carol, in an earlier interview), MJ began haranguing his family and visitors, once even performing an “exorcism” on Carol, for whom this was apparently the last straw. Carol herself, says Ilie, only found the courage to go public when her youngest child pleaded with her: “I’m just a child, mom, you’re the adult here! You have to protect me from him!”
Cannabis 'raises psychosis risk'
(Extract)
Source: BBC News, 27/07/2007
Cannabis users are 40% more likely than non-users to suffer a psychotic illness such as schizophrenia, say UK experts.
Writing in the Lancet, a team led by Dr Stanley Zammit from Bristol and Cardiff Universities said young people needed to be made aware of the dangers.
In an additional article, experts said up to 800 schizophrenia cases a year in the UK could be linked to cannabis use.
The researchers looked at 35 studies on the drug and mental health - but some experts urged caution over the results.
The study found the most frequent users of cannabis have twice the risk of non-users of developing psychotic symptoms, such as hallucinations and delusions.
Wesley takes a risk and a punch from his brother
(Extract)
Source: Times Herald, 04/07/2007
Wesley's shock at having a talking firefly in his ear was replaced by the shock of being slapped on the back so hard that it nearly knocked him off his feet.
"Hey, pipsqueak, who you talking to?" said a voice that Wesley, with a groan, recognized as his older brother, Rock.
"Um, just my imaginary friend?" Wesley said, unsure of himself.
"Dude, you are such a geek!" Rock said. "How old are you, 11?"
The buzzing in Wesley's ear was gone. Rock must have knocked the firefly - did he say his name was Lumiere? - out of his ear. Wesley wasn't sure whether to thank or punch his brother. He decided to ignore him and continue walking home.
"Say hi to your friend!" Rock yelled after him.
A half hour later, Wesley was lying on his bed, feeling gloomier than ever. Not only would he spend the summer alone, now he was hearing voices.
"Maybe I'm going crazy," Wesley said.
"Nope. I'm real," said Lumiere.
From Wesley´s Summer Adventure, a story for the school holidays where readers can help determine how the story will move forward.
Tulsan pleads guilty to federal arson count
(Extract)
Source: Associated Press, 04/07/12007
Alexander Neyman could face five to 20 years in prison for his role in the blazes at Barcelona Apartments, where nine units were damaged on April 11th. Neyman told the court that since his arrest he has been diagnosed as schizophrenic. He said that at the time of the fires he was hearing voices that, quote, "told me not to stop."
A review of Brain Research, Nanotech and the Military Mind Wars by Richard Thieme
(Extract)
Source: Counterpunch, 03/07/12007
The technology of hypersonic sound (HSS) illustrates how the worlds of scientific researchers and outsiders bifurcate, creating an epistemological divide when we outsiders try to understand what is happening on a basic level.
Hypersonic sound is "a column of sound that does not spread out like conventional sound but stays locked like a sonic laser." (p. 147). If you enter the column, you hear it, but outside it, you do not. HSS can be used to target individuals while ensuring that those around them hear nothing.
It does not take a devious mind to imagine a variety of uses for hypersonic sound, nor to imagine its misuse, even as a trivial amusement. Some accounts of HSS describe pedestrians on sunny days walking into a column of sound in which they hear a waterfall. Seconds later, the sound is gone. The demonstrator laughed, watching the non-consenting public try to puzzle out experiences for which they had no prior frame.
More pernicious uses of the technology suggest themselves. At the siege of Waco, David Koresh of the Branch Davidians reported hearing voices in his head. He was crazy, we are told. But without the key pieces to the puzzle how do we know?
Moreno states that he has spoken for years with people who claim to have been targeted by this or similar technologies which put voices into their heads or use them unknowingly to test beam, particle and electromagnetic weapons. I have spoken to such people, too.
Yes, hearing voices that are not there is a symptom of illness. But hearing a voice that no one else hears does not mean, now that we know about HSS, that the voices do not exist.
Woman declared legally insane by defense said she heard 'evil' voices, detective testifies
(Extract)
Source: Free Press, 21/06/2007
Directed by the voices in her head, Jennifer Kukla carried out a series of nonsensical steps before violently turning on her unsuspecting young daughters last winter in Macomb Township.
“She said she was hearing a variety of voices in her head she had never heard before. She said they started off nice and then got evil,” Macomb County Sheriff’s Det. Mark Grammatico said during a preliminary exam today.
Kinkel needed insanity defense, experts say
(Extract)
Source: Oregan Live, 20/06/2007
Both a psychologist and a psychiatrist testified Tuesday that lawyers for Kip Kinkel probably should have taken the case to trial and argued an insanity defense for the 1998 killings of his parents and two Thurston High School students because Kinkel was too mentally ill to understand a plea bargain that sent him to prison for more than 111 years.
..... Kinkel also suffered from hallucinations, hearing voices in his head, and from delusions, including his belief that the Walt Disney Co. was trying to take control of the country and that the government had implanted a computer chip in his brain, Sack and Bolstad said.
"Kip Kinkel began hearing voices in the sixth grade, when he was 12 years old," Sack said. "He was just a kid. He desperately wanted to be normal."
Bolstad added that Kinkel was too young to understand what was happening to him, so he kept his symptoms hidden, even though he later called the voices "a living hell."
Man charged with first-degree murder found competent
(Extract)
Source: CJ Online, 19/06/2007
A psychologist said Monday that a Topeka man, Theodore D. Netherland, 37, charged with murder wasn't competent to stand trial, a psychiatrist said he was and a Shawnee County District Court judge agreed with the psychiatrist.
Netherland heard voices and had hallucinations, Dr. J.L.L. Fernando, a staff psychiatrist said.
.... Netherland first told Fernando that he hadn't heard voices since he was arrested but later said he heard the voices "intermittently," but they didn't bother him. When hearing voices, a patient with schizophrenia can have difficulty figuring out what is reality, Fernando said.
Fernando said Netherland's delusions included that he was Michael Jackson, he was a woman, he was pregnant and that he had eight children.
Dr. Robert Schulman, a psychologist, characterized Netherland's hold on reality as "tenuous and weak."
Netherland told Schulman he began having hallucinations when he was 7 or 8 years old, and a male voice tells him to do things, including hurting himself and urging him to throw himself out the window of the apartment he lived in, Schulman said.
'You're Gonna Miss Me': Roky Doc, By Kurt Loder
(Extract)
Source and full film review: MTV Movie News, 18/06/2007
Doing time in Hell with Roky Erickson, the great lost star of '60s psychedelia.
"Now hearing voices in his head, he returned to Austin to live with his mother, who says in the film that she found him in the back yard one day in 1968, babbling and covered with sores. (Over the years, in and out of relative lucidity and musical activity, Roky's voices have shifted in character. Around the time of the "Evil One" album, they were Satanic, prompting songs with such titles as "I Think of Demons" and "Don't Shake Me Lucifer." Later the voices became extraterrestrial.) It was in 1968 that Roky was committed to the first of three mental institutions, at all of which he was subjected to electro-shock "therapy." He kept escaping from these places, which the authorities found annoying....
Kristina Grimes: runner-up on the hit TV show this week tells life story (UK)
(Extract)
Source and full story: News of the World, 17/06/2007
In a bid to make things work, Kristina moved in with her boyfriend, who we are not naming, after giving birth to his son Graeme. But when her boyfriend's mental health took a turn for the worse she took her son and fled to England. She said: "He said he had three voices in his head — Harry, Larry and Mo. He said Harry didn't like me, Larry did and Mo was indifferent. Sadly for me Larry didn't speak up much!"
Stephen promises lots of tears and laughter in emotional show (UK)
(Extract)
Source and full story: Whitehaven Times, Published on 14/06/2007
Stephen Holbrook was reaching for a pizza in his local supermarket when he accidentally tapped a woman on the hand and then heard voices. He thought that there was something wrong with him and went to the doctors. That was when he was just 16 years old. Now, aged 40, he is said to be one of Britain’s top clairvoyants.
Lineman, Dead at 36, Exposes Brain Injuries (USA)
(Extract)
Full story at New York Times, 13/06/2007
Strzelczyk, 6 feet 6 inches and 300 pounds, was a monstrous presence on the Steelers’ offensive line from 1990-98. He was known for his friendly, banjo-playing spirit and gluttony for combat. He spiraled downward after retirement, however, enduring a divorce and dabbling with steroid-like substances, and soon before his death complained of depression and hearing voices from what he called “the evil ones.” He was experiencing an apparent breakdown the morning of Sept. 30, 2004, when, during a 40-mile high-speed police chase in central New York, his pickup truck collided with a tractor-trailer and exploded, killing him instantly.
Vandal pooed to stop murder urge
(Extract from a section of the newspaper entitled "Weird")
Source and full story: Metro News, 11/06/2007 (UK)
A would-be murderer who defecated on trains to "purge" himself of inner voices urging him to kill has been detained indefinitely in a secure mental hospital. Over several months Bonney Eberendu, 36, ran up a £50,000 damages bill as teams of "specialist cleaners" were forced to withdraw rolling stock from service and spend hours cleaning up after him.
Guided by Voices
Rha Goddess as Lowquesha: Where is my mind? (USA)
(Extract)
Source and full review: City Pages, Minneapolis/St. Paul, 06/06/2007
In the dimly lit past of the tribal village, the mentally ill were beset by invisible demons. Or that's what people thought, at least: Whatever the literal reality—today we've given the old terrors names such as paranoid ideation and borderline personality—hearing voices ranting in one's head can sure seem demonic. In Rha Goddess's one-woman play LOW, pretty much all other adjectives fail.
Police officers get lessons at Silver Hill (USA)
(Extract)
Source and full story: The Wilton Bulletin, 21/05/2007
Police officers from around the state took part in a week-long crisis intervention training at Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan. Officials with Silver Hill noted a training session called “Hearing Voices.” In this session, each officer wore a headset to help understand the mindset and actions that are triggered when some people with mental illness hear voices.
In “Hearing Voices” each participant heard a simulation of voices and was required in the session to carry out basic tasks despite this sensory “attack.”