The Voices Within: The History and Science of How We Talk to Ourselves (Wellcome Collection) - Tapa dura

An elegantly written survey of contemporary scientific research into the inner dialogues we all conduct every day ... Moving ... persuasively unravels connections between the voices we hear inside and the words we say out loud, and shows that the conversations we have with ourselves can be as interesting and revealing as those we have with others. (Nick Rennison Sunday Times 2016-04-10)

Intriguing (Salley Vickers Observer 2016-04-24)

A lucid, authoritative survey of our current knowledge ... The author's investigations, at once scientific and humane, represent the discipline of psychology at its rare best. (Raymond Tallis Wall Street Journal)

An intriguing and deeply humane book... particularly good when addressing the role of inner voices in creativity ... In The Voices Within, [Fernyhough] has again rendered complicated mental experience without losing its human texture. (Casey Schwartz New York Times Book Review)

Profound and eloquent (he is a novelist too), Fernyhough presents an intriguing array of fresh findings and perspectives. He makes a persuasive case that one of the most inti­mate and private of our mental activities has a social origin. We talk to ourselves because we talked to others first. (Douwe Draaisma Nature 2016-04-07)

Compelling ... it does reassure those of us who worry that we have a chorus of voices jabbering in our heads. It turns out we're not mad, or even odd, but simply lucky enough to have a second - or thirdm or fourth - opinion always on call to help. (Kathryn Hughes Mail on Sunday 2016-05-01)

Fascinating and elegantly humane ... [Fernyhough's] book is refreshingly interdisciplinary in its insistence that philosophy and literature are going to be just as important investigative tools for this subject as clinical psychology and brain scan ... illuminating (Steven Poole Guardian 2016-05-28)

Throughout Charles Fernyhough's fascinating tour d'horizon he collapses many similar oppositions: between data and feelings, speaking and listening, external reality and our inner lives. These perspectives may not all resolve into a single viewpoint, but like the voices that constitute our thoughts, they are brought into stimulating and fruitful conversation. (Mike Jay Literary Review 2016-04-01)

In his eye-opening new book, Charles Fernyhough explores this inner speech, revealing what purpose it serves, what it says about us, and what it can tell us about those who experience hallucinated voices. (BBC Science Focus 2016-04-09)

With its extensive illustrations of the creative effects of inner speech and voice-hearing, sane and mad, [The Voices Within] is a thought-provoking and engaging read. (Janet Sayers THE 2016-07-28)