Chris Cook is Emeritus Professor in Spirituality, Theology & Health at Durham University, and Honorary Chaplain for Tees, Esk & Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust. He is a past chair of the Spirituality & Psychiatry Special Interest Group at the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He was awarded the Canterbury Cross by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 2020 for his work on theology and psychiatry, and the Oskar Pfister Award by the American Psychiatric Association in 2021 for his work on religion and psychiatry. His books include Hearing Spiritual Voices (2023), and (with Hamley & Swinton) Struggling with God (2023).
In his talk, Chris will explore the view that religious experiences are a feature of mental illness, also giving examples of ‘voices’ heard by people with no evidence of mental disorder. Psychological and interdisciplinary research has shed a revealing light on these experiences in recent years, so that we now know much more about the phenomenon of ‘hearing voices’ than ever before.