I have been teaching meditaiton at a psychiatric hospital for just over a year now. This place; Denver Springs in Englewood Colorado, it has four wards and about 98 beds.
There are different wards, one for adolesents aged 12 to 17, an acute care adult group, a detoxification group of adults coming off drugs or alcohol and need help stabilizing and what we call a 'hero's' group of active military, first responders and vets. I teach a class to each of them every week.
One thing I found interesting is the internal chatter we all have. From that internal voice that says 'you are so dumb' etc or those we call 'CAH' or commanding audtory hallucinations, where people hear their internal voices tell them to do things like hurt themselves or others. In our society here in the West we find that most people see 'hearing voices' as an illness and something to be ashamed of and really in need of despirate treatment, medication and sequestration from others.
Recently we had a young boy, perhaps 16 who was having many voice commands to hurt himself. I could tell from talking to him he was worried and concerned as these seemed to be totally out of his control and impossible for him to understand. His voices were troubling and he used 'self medication' i.e. drugs to help him quell them. This often backfired and he would get worse.
I, personally have had all sorts of voices I have heard. I often speak of them in my classes and figured they were normal and everyone had at least some experience of this. Some have a narrator, or a conversation, or conflicting thoughts that they 'answer' this is indeed a voice although some don't feel they actually 'hear' it but rather percieve it in their minds. However some, not realizing it, do hear as if the voice is outside of their heads. I have had an entire 'committee' up there, discussing and arguing, asking and contributing or worrying, and then worry about worrying, and then having a whole discussion about the futility of that worrying and then wondering why... etc... It can at times seem to get out of hand.
In Buddhism, we have what are called the Five Aggregates or the Skandas. These five parts are what make up 'us' or 'the self' they are constantly changing, depenent on each other and interdependent on the outside world. We have form (the body), feelings (either pleasant, unpleasant or neurtral), perceptions/cognition (knoing of colors, thoughts, memories, plans, ideas, who you think you are.) mental formations (such as desires, emotional level stuff, likes and dislikes, , judgements etc) and conciousness itself (it is awareness itself). .
Some say to not listen to those voices and ignore them, some say to allow them to arrive, 'but don't give them a place to sit' so they just go, some say to listen and others say, 'sit with them, offer them tea and see what they are all about'. Modern psychology and psychiatry sees it as an illness from the get go. They see it as a need to induce intensive therapy, medication and even more drastic therapies such as ECT (Electro convulsive shock therapy).
Working in progress...
