Whispering Cove

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The Royal Society, London.

"The time has come for a change in the way we view psychosis."

I scanned the lecture hall before me. A sold-out event. Academics, clinicians, and the rich and curious crammed the long, narrow room.

A dark silhouette flashed at the corner of my eye, long and thin, like the hunched form of a witch from some twisted fairytale as it slid across the wall. Pockets of the audience flinched, gripping the edges of their seats, their gazes searching for something under them.

I smiled.

I'd been living in London for almost four years, extending my investigations into third-wave psychological treatments for psychosis. Stepping into the shadows of research giants like Romme and Escher.

The field had come a long way—a long, long way—from the days when we put people in straight jackets and locked them in padded cells, or worse. Today the world was more understanding, but there was still far to go. It was all well and good for people to understand that some people see and hear and feel things that the rest of us did not. Who hadn't seen a person walking down the street having a conversation—or a screaming match—with an invisible someone?

Most people had flashes of psychosis-like encounters. They could relate at the level of hearing their phone ring—only to find they imagined it, or the feeling of everyone looking at them when they walked into a room. The problem was, such explanations, common for normalizing psychosis, were just, well, patronising.

'Oh, yes, I get it. Sometimes I hallucinate too. Sometimes I think I hear my husband calling out to me before he even gets home from work. Ha, ha, ha.'

It was the equivalent of telling a homeless person who holds a piece of cardboard explaining their fall into poverty, that times are hard for everyone. That you too needed to make sacrifices—as you hold your mega frappe macchiato in one hand and plop a 50p coin into their hat.

There is a saying in therapy: Roll with the resistance. Basically, it means don't butt heads with people. Like you don't argue about religion or politics at a dinner party. And never, never tell someone to "calm down" or "just be happy."

Down with Nike therapy! (Insert mental fist pump).

To be successful in life, you must swim with the riptide. Float in the quicksand. Find the kernel of truth. Show don't tell.

That was what I was doing: showing. A little peek into the world of psychosis to help the assembly before me 'get it.' Small speakers clung to the undersides of random chairs and a hidden team of sound and lighting technicians put on a performance.

A phantom door slammed shut, followed by a series of gasps, then nervous laughter.

"You may have noticed unusual phenomena this evening."

Heads nodded. People murmured their ascent.

"Who here, despite these assaults on their senses," I said the last four words in a mocking, Freud-like voice, "was able to engage with this evenings' proceedings? Yes, raise your hands." I made an encouraging movement with my own hands as a few hundred arms lifted to the ceiling.

I stepped away from the podium, my stiletto heels clicking on the lacquered floor, then stopped and twisted to face the crowd, hands clasped.

A crazed cackle enveloped us. A shiver ran down my back—it sounded so real.

Had this been a small group of students or a practical at a clinic, I would give everyone a set of headphones. They would listen to a track mimicking auditory hallucinations and complete a task like cooking scones or playing Uno. They would experience the fact that hallucinations made things more of a challenge, but they were bearable. You could live with them. Like you could do homework while your parents had talk-back radio blaring, as annoying as that was.