Hearing voices peer support groups are transforming the lives of people all over the world, allowing them to understand and cope with experiences that have long confused or frightened them. Many have spent years in the psychiatric system – treated with powerful medications or repeated hospitalization – yet continue to struggle with extreme states or anomalous thoughts, perceptions, or feelings. Even those with access to psychotherapy often find their experiences debilitating. Routinely labeled as ‘chronic’ or ‘treatment resistant,’ they can become increasingly estranged both from others and themselves. Hearing voices groups offer a crucial alternative, allowing the transformational power of relationship to foster a deeper understanding of mental life, in oneself as well as others.
For more than 10 years, the two of us have facilitated, and trained others to facilitate, hearing voices groups in the UK, US, Australia, Holland and Ireland. We have witnessed the profound effects they can have for people considered unreachable as well as those who have received some benefit from treatment. These effects cannot easily be quantified or studied within traditional research paradigms. Yet they are powerfully real to the people who experience them. We are beginning the first systematic program of research into the mechanisms of HVN groups to provide clearer evidence of the contribution they can make to best practice.
In our work together over the past decade, we have forged a style of egalitarian collaboration where Jacqui’s background as an activist and voice hearer, and Gail's as an academic researcher who has been radically changed by involvement with the Hearing Voices Network, can come together to create a new approach to practice and research. The goal of our panel is to foster dialogue about the rich possibilities that partnerships of 'expertise by experience' and 'expertise by training' offer to all of us.
Influencing research , Experts by experience , Other organisational approaches
