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Author: Robert N. McCauley
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190091142
Category : Cognition and culture
Languages : en
Pages : 281
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Book Description
"McCauley and Graham endorse an Ecumenical Naturalism toward all cognition, which will illuminate the long-recognized and striking similarities between features of mental disorders and features of religions. The authors emphasize underlying cognitive continuities between familiar features of religiosity, of mental disorders, and of everyday thinking and action. They contend that much religious thought and behavior can be explained in terms of the cultural activation of maturationally natural cognitive systems, which address fundamental problems of human survival, encompassing such capacities as hazard precautions, agency detection, language processing, and theory of mind. The associated skills are not taught and appear independent of general intelligence. Religions' representations cue such systems' operations. The authors hypothesize that in doing so they sometimes elicit responses that mimic features of cognition and conduct associated with mental disorders. Both in schizophrenia and in religions some people hear alien voices. The inability of depressed participants to communicate with or sense their religions' powerful, caring gods can exacerbate their depression. Often religions can domesticate the concerns and compulsions of people with OCD. Religions' rituals and pronouncements about moral thought-action fusion can temporarily evoke similar obsessions and compulsions in the general population. A chapter is devoted to each of these and to the exception that proves the rule. The authors argue that if Autistic Spectrum Disorder involves theory of mind deficits, then people with ASD will lack intuitive insight and find inferences with many religious representations challenging. Ecumenical Naturalism's approach to mental abnormalities and religiosity promises both explanatory and therapeutic understanding"--
Author: Robert N. McCauley
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190091142
Category : Cognition and culture
Languages : en
Pages : 281
Get Book
Book Description
"McCauley and Graham endorse an Ecumenical Naturalism toward all cognition, which will illuminate the long-recognized and striking similarities between features of mental disorders and features of religions. The authors emphasize underlying cognitive continuities between familiar features of religiosity, of mental disorders, and of everyday thinking and action. They contend that much religious thought and behavior can be explained in terms of the cultural activation of maturationally natural cognitive systems, which address fundamental problems of human survival, encompassing such capacities as hazard precautions, agency detection, language processing, and theory of mind. The associated skills are not taught and appear independent of general intelligence. Religions' representations cue such systems' operations. The authors hypothesize that in doing so they sometimes elicit responses that mimic features of cognition and conduct associated with mental disorders. Both in schizophrenia and in religions some people hear alien voices. The inability of depressed participants to communicate with or sense their religions' powerful, caring gods can exacerbate their depression. Often religions can domesticate the concerns and compulsions of people with OCD. Religions' rituals and pronouncements about moral thought-action fusion can temporarily evoke similar obsessions and compulsions in the general population. A chapter is devoted to each of these and to the exception that proves the rule. The authors argue that if Autistic Spectrum Disorder involves theory of mind deficits, then people with ASD will lack intuitive insight and find inferences with many religious representations challenging. Ecumenical Naturalism's approach to mental abnormalities and religiosity promises both explanatory and therapeutic understanding"--
Author: Robert N. McCauley
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190091150
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 320
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Book Description
A man with schizophrenia believes that God is instructing him through the public address system in a bus station. A nun falls into a decades-long depression because she believes that God refuses to answer her prayers. A neighborhood parishioner is bedeviled with anxiety because he believes that a certain religious ritual must be repeated, repeated, and repeated lest God punish him. To what extent are such manifestations of religious thinking analogous to mental disorder? Does mental dysfunction bring an individual closer to religious experience or thought? Hearing Voices and Other Unusual Experiences explores these questions using the tools of the cognitive science of religion and the philosophy of psychopathology. Robert McCauley and George Graham emphasize underlying cognitive continuities between familiar features of religiosity, of mental disorders, and of everyday thinking and action. They contend that much religious thought and behavior can be explained as the cultural activation of our natural cognitive systems, which address matters that are essential to human survival: hazard precautions, agency detection, language processing, and theory of mind. Those systems produce responses to cultural stimuli that may mimic features of cognition and conduct associated with mental disorders, but which are sometimes coded as "religious" depending on the context. The authors examine hallucinations of the voice of God and of other supernatural agents, spiritual depression often described as a "dark night of the soul," religious scrupulosity and compulsiveness, and challenges to theistic cognition that Autistic Spectrum Disorder poses. Their approach promises to shed light on both mental abnormalities and religiosity.
Author: Christopher C. H. Cook
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429750943
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 258
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Book Description
The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781472453983, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivative 4.0 license. Experiences of hearing the voice of God (or angels, demons, or other spiritual beings) have generally been understood either as religious experiences or else as a feature of mental illness. Some critics of traditional religious faith have dismissed the visions and voices attributed to biblical characters and saints as evidence of mental disorder. However, it is now known that many ordinary people, with no other evidence of mental disorder, also hear voices and that these voices not infrequently include spiritual or religious content. Psychological and interdisciplinary research has shed a revealing light on these experiences in recent years, so that we now know much more about the phenomenon of "hearing voices" than ever before. The present work considers biblical, historical, and scientific accounts of spiritual and mystical experiences of voice hearing in the Christian tradition in order to explore how some voices may be understood theologically as revelatory. It is proposed that in the incarnation, Christian faith finds both an understanding of what it is to be fully human (a theological anthropology), and God’s perfect self-disclosure (revelation). Within such an understanding, revelatory voices represent a key point of interpersonal encounter between human beings and God.
Author: Charles Fernyhough
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465096816
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 320
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Book Description
We live immersed in thought. But do we actually know what a thought is? To answer this question, psychology professor Charles Fernyhough draws on everything from neuroscience to literary history to grasp the true nature of this most inscrutable of acts: thinking. Whether a medieval saint who hears voices or a writer absorbed in an imagined world, a daydreamer riding the subway or a captivated reader, we experience thought as a creative inner dialogue featuring multiple voices. Fernyhough uses this conception to demystify mental illness, showing that imagining voices is intimately linked to the feeling of artistic production. Drawing on literature, film, and psychology, as well as cognitive science, The Voices Within is a poetic venture into the depths of our mind. It will revolutionize the way we hear and understand the voices in our heads.
Author: John Watkins
Publisher: Michelle Anderson Publishing
ISBN: 9780855723903
Category : Auditory hallucinations
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
The issues surrounding mental health in Australia have for the past year created a great deal of exposure in the media. Andrew Denton's programme Enough Rope recently devoted an entire programme to the problems of Hearing Voices. This book contains a wealth of information of great practical value to people who hear voices as well as to those who simply wish to learn more about this fascinating aspect of human psychology. It also addresses many complex questions regarding personal identity, the nature of consciousness, the relationship between mind and brain and the place of spirituality in human life - issues which will be of interest to all thoughtful readers. John Watkins is an internationally-known and respected counsellor and educator whose main professional interest is in exploring and promoting holistic approaches to the development and maintenance of mental Health. In this latest book, he provides: a detailed description of a wide variety of voice hearing experiences, an overview of the theories accounting for how and why this happens, a range of practical techniques for coping with or stopping voices, guidelines for applying spiritual discernment to hearing voices, and strategies for optimising the personal value of voice hearing experiences.
Author: Eric Coates
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781481271806
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 108
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Book Description
I remember an instance at one point, during my late twenties or early thirties, when I wondered what it would be like to hear voices. At that time I was slightly acquainted with a schizophrenic named Mike, who told me that he had Jesus in his head. That was his hallucination. Jesus talked to him, apparently. I remember wondering at the time what it would be like to have Jesus talking in my head. What would it be like, I wondered, to be schizophrenic for a day? It turned out to be more terrifying than I ever imagined.
Author: Robert N. McCauley
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199341540
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
A comparison of the cognitive foundations of religion and science and an argument that religion is cognitively natural and that science is cognitively unnatural.
Author: Claire Bien
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
ISBN: 1784503223
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 272
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Book Description
When Claire Bien first began hearing voices, they were infrequent, benign and seemingly just curious about her life and the world around her. But the more attention Claire paid, the more frequently they began to speak, and the darker their intentions became... Despite escalating paranoia, an initial diagnosis of Schizophreniform Disorder and taking medication with debilitating side effects, Claire learned to face her demons and manage her condition without the need for long-term medication. In this gripping memoir, Claire recounts with eloquence her most troubled times. She explains how she managed to regain control over her mind and her life even while intermittently hearing voices, through self-guided and professional therapy and with the support of family and friends. Challenging a purely medical understanding of hearing voices, Claire advocates for an end to the stigma of those who experience auditory verbal hallucinations, and a change of thinking from the professionals who treat the condition.
Author: M. A. J. Romme
Publisher: Gwasg y Bwthyn
ISBN: 9781906254223
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Provides the evidence to show it's possible to overcome problems with hearing voices and take back control of one's life.
Author: Sam Taggart
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1440132550
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 221
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Book Description
Albert Lawrence Moon is a small-town guy with big-time dreams that never quite materialize. His only real asset is Moon's Bar and Grill in Gum Ridge, Arkansas. Even that business is struggling despite the busy racetrack across the street. But things at Moon's start to pick up after an odd fellow named Jack starts cooking for the joint. Jack's inexplicable ability and his passion for flavors and smells turn even the most ordinary dishes into magnificent creations and soon turns Moon's into the hottest eatery in town. But Jack is plagued by voices only he can hear, and when he takes medicine to make the voices go away, he can no longer cook. Owner and co-workers bond as their stories unfold against the backdrop of a little Southern greasy spoon. Mary Ann, the waitress who befriends Jack, is waiting for a tall-cotton cowboy to sweep her off her feet and far away from this town. Moon's newest get-rich-quick scheme threatens the cafe's business, and Jack sinks further into madness as the murmurs in his mind turn into loud, angry roars. Brimming with Southern flavor and peppered with quirky characters with their own unique challenges, We All Hear Voices serves up a tale of unlikely friendships and the human desire for happiness.
