Table 7.

Common Themes on Control Development Over Voice-Hearing Experiences

1.Voice Onset
Treatment-Seeking [TS]	Non-Treatment-Seeking [NTS]
TS12  “So I’ve been a voice hearer for a really long time. I was very auditory when I was younger, and when it happened at first, I didn’t really talk about it to anyone … and I had a lot of issues going on.”    TS22  ..."my first kind of hearing voices – I would say for a couple of weeks, like a break, or episode kind of thing when I was about 32. And it was initially really scary.”	NTS02  “I began to begin hearing things, we call them voices in my, in my youth, pre-teen. It would be very simple of ‘hi (subject name)’ …. And it was weird, but I rode it off and never gave it much thought,    NTS05  “…my first experience of clairaudience was because I was praying to the angels to ask for help…that was so weird, I don’t know what to think about this right now.”
2. Making Sense of the Experience
TS12  “I figured out about different voices and different aspects, or what I’ve come to understand, is that they are all different parts of myself, and they all have a voice, and they’ve always been there my whole life..”    TS22  “So, it’s not like a normal thing to hear voices.” “…I was like something’s not quite right. … I was like, I kept hearing ‘wherever you go I’ll be there, wherever you are I’ll be there,’ and I was like, this isn’t cool. I need to go back to work, like, I can’t anymore.”	NTS02  “Well you know as a kid, you know, I wondered, ‘what is this,’ … ‘what is this?’, but it didn’t bother me that much… and now I’m just more spiritually conscious, I don’t know, but I am really determined that this is a spirit talking to me.”    NTS05  “I went into those class pretty much thinking I was going to be a clairvoyant, … I realized that I was actually hearing information in my, primarily in my right ear… I primarily connect to the angels”
3. Turning Point
TS12  “Until I got hospitalized and someone asked me about voices and I’m like “yeah” … I went to the hospital, they made me feel ashamed about it…they drugged me up with a lot of medications and so I was never talked about it again…”    TS22  “I went to the hospital. And I was like, ‘Hi, I’m hearing voices. Something’s not quite right”…“I remember my therapist had said, “if you hear something, why not ask who it is and what they’re trying to tell you? You know?.” And I was like, “oh ok.” So, I thought I heard something, I thought I heard a guy again. And I was like “hello?” and they were like, “hi, I’m here”	NTS02  “….and so I, I said, ‘okay, we’re not going to go this way’ with clinical. You know, let’s try to stop what is happening to me of hearing voices and having feelings...and let’s say that I am not broken, and that maybe what I am hearing, or feeling is normal. So, let’s go this way, and look alternatively in shamanic tradition, which is what resonated, you know, with me.”    NTS05  “So I started to get as many books as I can as far as psychics, and even like ghost stories and haunted houses and angels and just trying to like figure this whole world out”
4. Support Seeking
TS12  “…definitely have the community with people with similar experiences. We all understand each other in that aspect. When I went to the hospital this year, I faced a hard dilemma, I know that my team supporting me while I was going through the process – or even when I was super suicidal, they babysat me”    TS22  “Yeah, I mean that’s the first thing I looked up, is there psychic therapy? Is there psychic support? A support group? And I couldn’t find anything. There’s gotta be something.”	NTS02  “Yeah. They’re, um, they’re like my community, my soul family, my friends. … what I call family, and we all care for each other as deeply as human beings.”    NTS05  “I left teaching just a few months after meeting (mentor name), and starting to investigate my psychic abilities. Um, and I just kind of went on this like, I’m going to jump and hope you catch me kind of thing.”
5. Acceptance
TS12  “Learning to accept all aspects. You know like, because I’m not an organized person because of this. But I’ve accepted that part about myself if that makes sense”    TS22 “I heard “hey listen, you can go on them. Do whatever’s comfortable for you.” For me, it was kind of like – they’re always going to be here, so I need to start tuning into what’s happening emotionally with me, versus kind of like not dealing with it. Let’s see what happens.”	NTS02  “I’m hearing people that want help crossing. So, the more you open yourself up, and the more you accept it. And, and I do think that a piece of it is not feeling like you are broken, not feeling like you should be ashamed, or not those traditional feelings that maybe there is a reason for this, the better of you are.”    NTS05  “I have come out and said “this is my gift, this is what I’m doing with my life.” And so people are kind of coming out to me, it’s like coming out of the psychic closet, to be honest.”