Tag: hearing voices network

Results from a national study show the transformational qualities of Hearing Voices groups, including their egalitarian structure and the genuine connection they foster.

A collective knowledge of lived experience is a straightforward answer for improving millions of lives, but it has become clear that it will take an organized community of voice-hearers and their allies to take back credibility and authorship on the narrative of our own lives.

Please come join us for our discussion on June 5 with Caroline Mazel-Carlton, Cindy Marty Hadge, Ronda Speight, Rufus May, Paul Baker, and Chackupurackal Mathai. This “Dialogue in a Time of Crisis” Town Hall will explore how the Hearing Voices Movement, like Open Dialogue, has been building the resources the world needs at this pivotal moment of in our collective history.

Mad in America is proud to introduce a new venture: a web series of virtual “Town Hall” conversations, “Exploring Dialogical Responses in a Time of Crisis,” on Fridays at noon, eastern standard time. The first live town hall will be held on Friday, April 17.

One of the HVN's fundamental principles is that "the person having these experiences is in the best position to decide or discover what they mean" and thus each person must "not try to speak for" another. The challenge for a family group will likely be for members to move past speaking about our loved ones to find or imagine the space where we ourselves are liberated.

We were caught in a tug of war. They wanted my voices gone. I was not going to let go of my voices, my confidants and protectors, regardless of what they did to me. We have the right to hear voices and no longer be hidden away in the attic of taboo and misunderstood experiences. The freedom to hear voices is truly a fundamental human right.

"...whilst the CP model may very well resonate with numerous voice-hearers, I wonder if there may also be limitations inherent to it. Firstly,...

The voice came to me for three nights in a row, and changed me at my core. I believe my voice was, and is, the voice of G-d, of love. But one devoted friend, an influential physician at the University of Minnesota, felt strongly that I had “lost it” and tried to persuade me to see his psychiatry buddy at the university.

In this piece for Vice, Tess McClure describes New Zealand's Mad Pride movement, a movement that seeks to destigmatize, normalize, and celebrate experiences of voice-hearing...

From The Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care: The Hearing Voices Research and Development Fund has been awarded a $300,000 grant to expand their...

In this interview for The Atlantic, James Kugel speculates on the minds and experiences of ancient prophets through a neuroscientific lens, exploring how biblical people's sense of...

From Science of Us: There seems to be a growing interest in the concept of healthy voice-hearing. The idea that hearing voices may not be...

From Sapiens: Researchers are increasingly recognizing the role that social and environmental factors, including childhood abuse, stressful events, and poverty, play in the development of...

Hearing Voices Network self-help groups are an important resource for coping with voice hearing, study finds.

In this piece for STAT, Shirley S. Wang discusses the Hearing Voices Network and its non-pathologizing, rights-affirming approach to hearing voices and alternative realities. "Many recovered...

In this piece for The Atlantic, Joseph Frankel compares and contrasts the voice-hearing experiences of self-described psychics and mediums with the experiences of people diagnosed with...

In this piece for The Independent, Rachel Waddingham describes her experience with hearing voices as well as learning to live with and understand her voices. "When...

In this piece for Vice, Laetitia Laubscher discusses the Hearing Voices Network, a non-medical approach to hearing voices and experiencing extreme states. "...a key goal...

In this second article, I will further analyze the reasons why the unevidenced biological-illness approach to “schizophrenia” has become so entrenched in our society. Most importantly, I will discuss hopeful alternatives.

As a psychiatric survivor who has personally experienced severe psychosis, my criticisms focus on the relative lack of attention to what psychiatric drugs actually are, and on the uncertain, contested nature of the supposed target of these drugs: “schizophrenia.” I will elaborate on each of these points with references, as well as highlighting alternative approaches to helping psychotic people.

The following interview with Eleanor Longden, who is well known for her Ted Talk and her activism in the psychiatric survivor movement, is part of a “future of mental health” interview series that I’m currently conducting on my Psychology Today blog Rethinking Mental Health. To see the full interview roster, please visit http://ericmaisel.com/interview-series.

The question ‘why do people hear voices?’ tends to rise up after we’ve offered challenges to medicalized perspectives. Most often, this question does not come from people who hear voices themselves, but from people in provider roles, and – with the greatest frequency – from parents. As a parent myself, I understand the desperation to make things ‘okay’ for one's child. I can empathize deeply with the sense of fight and the search for answers. But what if it’s the wrong question entirely? What if focusing in on ‘why’ actually pulls us further and further away from the ‘helping’ that we most aim to find?

Journalist Emma Reynolds profiles Amanda Waegeli, Ron Coleman, Nathan Grixli and Lyn Mahboub about their experiences coming to the Hearing Voices Network (HVN). HVN was established 10 years ago in Australia and provided a support group that encouraged people to listen to their voices rather than trying to block them out. The group now operates in 25 countries.

On Saturday morning, Susan Inman, writing for HuffPost Canada, published “What You’re not Hearing About the Hearing Voices Movement.” In it, she criticizes HVM for “failing to differentiate between the needs of people who actually have psychotic disorders and those who don't.” On Sunday the Bay Area Hearing Voices Network published an open letter in response, writing: “Ms. Inman has profoundly mischaracterized hearing voices networks (HVNs) and also demonstrates a troubling lack of understanding of the empirical literature on psychosis, optimal psychosocial intervention and recovery.”

In the system of mental health “care” which is dominant today, “hearing voices” is conceptualized as an illness, and so the goal is seen...