Hearing Voices-How schizophrenia can teach us to listen | Matthew Geer | TEDxQueensUniversityBelfast

As a composer who also suffers from schizophrenia, I’ve spent a lot of time learning how to deal with hearing voices and exploring different approaches of listening to music. However, it’s only recently, through trying to be more optimistic about my diagnosis, that I’ve realised the way I cope with schizophrenia might be able to also teach me something about listening.
I find music difficult to listen to. Not least as a schizophrenic, but my concentration is generally bad, probably made worse by social media and my smart phone; it’s something I can turn to at the immediate materialisation of boredom. One way I cope with hearing voices is through deep focus on the sound, mitigating the initial reacting to the content. I observe the textures and characteristics of the sound; it’s qualities alone and in relation to other sounds that temporally surround it. It’s like saying a word repeatedly until it’s meaning is lost and the sound becomes strange. At this point, you’re freed from your initial reaction to the sound, and can explore the sound at a deeper and more inquisitive level. Matt is a researcher in aesthetic philosophy, specialising in the phenomenology of music and temporal consciousness. He is currently writing a PhD, supervised at Queen's University Belfast and is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he studied music composition.
As a composer, Matt writes mainly opera and vocal works and frequently draws upon his experiences with schizoaffective disorder, a condition that combines symptoms of schizophrenia and bipolar. Matt is an award-winning organist and has played at many major Cathedrals in the UK and abroad. In his spare time, he enjoys cycling, learning languages and playing jazz piano. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at www.ted.com/tedx

[@MLife1000]

Thank you for sharing your story

[@nicoled5160]

i dunno. You can dismantle anger to pain and try to be calm, but as someone with chronic pain I try to not focus on it. Detach to a degree.
Interesting video. I work with people with a schizophrenia. always interested in how people cope.

[@user-il4eg1zl2o]

It's hard to put into words just how much *Anthony_support0* helped me. They're true heroes in my book!!!!!

[@ewanholmes4559]

Don't necessarily do this this guy's a musician so sounds a bug thing for them, simply focus on stuff and it will go away

[@CDLuminous]

Very good perspective

[@JayyL431]

This is the best

[@layotheleprechaun]

👏🏻

[@spartandrops1792]

When listening to voices, you will not hear the words as words? But continue to pay close attention to them?
In my opinion, there are already better ways of looking at it than the following one I mention, which is about treating the hearing of voices like thoughts, when a thought arises, it is there for the time being and you can't think it back, but you can remember that it is only a thought and you don't have to follow it,
Banishing it is not possible but thinking something else, consciously following another thought is.
How do you or others do that nowadays would interest me

[@NidalWorld]

Well i ignore it for like the first 2 hours and then when its so loud i can literally here it from like out the window i calmly say to myself out loud:
"...hello?"
and then they usually stop

[@user-il4eg1zl2o]

It's hard to put into words just how much *Anthony_support0* helped me. They're true heroes in my book!

[@user-il4eg1zl2o]

@@NidalWorld It's hard to put into words just how much *Anthony_support0* helped me. They're true heroes in my book!!!

[@kolskings2762]

Fatigue