Context:

The phenomenon of hearing voices is present in a significant percentage of the world population without necessarily triggering psychic suffering. However, when hearing voices is linked to the hegemonic psychiatric knowledge, it produces prejudice and social stigma. However, since the late 1980s, this phenomenon has been understood by the International Movement of Hearers of Voices as a variation of subjectivity, producing new approaches to care, far from old psychiatric practices for people who hear voices.

Objective:

to know the interpretations about the origin of voices and the influences they assume in the life of the listener.

Methodology:

this is an exploratory and qualitative study, in which semi-structured interviews were carried out with 14 voice hearers in a Psychosocial Care Center in southern Brazil from April to May 2018.

Results:

two themes emerged for discussion: interpretation of the origin of voices and influences that voices have in the listener's daily life. The presence of religious beliefs and supernatural issues were found, in addition to the influence of voices in simple daily activities, which generate intense suffering leading to social isolation, anxiety and depression.

Conclusions:

the international movement of hearers allows mental health professionals to understand and treat subjects who hear voices beyond what psychiatric knowledge defends, as they come to understand the subject from their narratives and life stories, which contributed to the creation of strategies to deal with voices and help in their resignification.

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