Voice Listeners: Understanding and Accompanying
My discovery of the Voice Hearers groups was thanks to Mireia. Talking about these groups without talking about her wouldn't make sense to me. Mireia is, among many other things, the mother of Sara, a 21-year-old who has been hearing voices since she was 15 and hasn't found a treatment that allows her to live a life free from suffering. Sara isn't an isolated case. She isn't the exception that proves the rule. Sara is the rule, and Mireia refused to accept it without a fight. She came to me in November 2019 in my capacity as a project technician for the Catalan Federation of First-Person Mental Health Organizations ( Federación Veus ): "My daughter has been hearing voices since she was 15, she takes a lot of medication, and yet she still hears the voices and lives in great distress. She doesn't leave the house, she doesn't go to school, she's really suffering, and I don't know how to help her. I've read about the Voice Hearers groups and wanted to know if you have any operating in Barcelona."
I felt lost. I wanted to know so I could support her, and at that moment I knew nothing. I told Mireia this, and we continued on the phone while she explained what a Voice Hearers group was like, how they worked, and where they came from. I felt completely immersed in the story, in every concept and every point Mireia made with the expertise of a professional, or in this case, a mother desperate to help her daughter. I asked her to send me all the information she had and promised to contact her again as soon as I had a chance to study it. A week later, we were once again deep in conversation about Voice Hearers groups, and we began to develop the idea of creating our own group, the third in Catalonia and the first in Barcelona . On June 30, 2020, the group opened its doors. In November 2021, after two years, a lot of effort, enthusiasm and unparalleled moments with Mireia and with all the people who have dedicated their time to the project, I am here with the wish that this article will be for you what Mireia was for me: the discovery of the Voice Listeners groups.
The phenomenon of hearing voices, or auditory hallucinations, in the absence of an external stimulus has sparked and continues to spark considerable interest among both academics and the general public. It is an intriguing and, even with the research conducted, enigmatic phenomenon. This generates a need to gain knowledge to better understand it, not only for the sake of knowledge itself, but also to develop effective interventions for its treatment, so that those who experience it can have a better quality of life.
The origin of the Voice Listeners groups
Voice Hearers groups began to form in the late 1980s in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, inspired by the work of Marius Romme , a Dutch social psychiatrist. Romme treated people who heard voices and suffered as a result. Thanks to a particular case, for whom medication was failing, he decided to try something different. He put this patient in contact with another patient who also heard voices. He found that there was mutual recognition between them and that they provided each other with support. This didn't seem enough to him, and he decided to seek out other people who heard voices and were coping better. That's why he made an appeal on Dutch television in 1987. This gave him access to people who heard voices but had never had contact with mental health services. These were people without any psychiatric diagnosis or treatment who could live with their voices without them being a problem .
Mutual support groups in the field of mental health
He found that these individuals could cope with their voices and live with them, while most of the people he treated experienced significant suffering related to hearing voices. He then decided to organize meetings between these individuals to learn about their experiences. He observed that when these people met and talked among themselves, they understood each other much better than when they spoke with professionals, and that the problem wasn't so much the act of hearing voices themselves, but rather the relationship the person established with them and how they coped with them.
When these people met and talked among themselves, they understood each other much better than when they spoke with professionals.
As a result of these meetings, the first groups and associations of Voice Hearers were established (Foundation Resonance in the Netherlands and the Hearing Voices Network in the United Kingdom), mostly composed of people who heard voices. Professionals also participated, but in a different role than usual, primarily as group facilitators and support individuals. Professor Romme continued to conduct research and studies on the subject, generating a wealth of knowledge over the years, which he has presented in his books and articles with an innovative and revolutionary approach.
A key feature of this approach is its central perspective, which views mental illness as an inability to function effectively in society. From this viewpoint, the threat to mental health lies in the difficulty of coping with significant stressful situations, coupled with interpersonal or social challenges that overwhelm the individual. This position aligns with the recovery model and does not simply seek to suppress symptoms with pharmaceuticals (Runciman, 2016).
Thus, one of the main objectives set by the pioneers of this intervention, Romme and Escher (2005), is to make explicit the relationship between each person's personal history and the voices they hear . The aim is to remove these voices from the field of psychopathology and situate them within the context of the person's life experiences. This action is considered extremely liberating (Romme & Escher, 2005).
This learning is designed not to reduce the experience of hearing voices per se, but to reduce the perceived power of the voices to distress or harm.
Another objective of these groups is to "demystify the voices." Along these lines, Romme and Escher (2005) do not deny that hearing voices is an unusual experience, but they insist that this phenomenon does not require an extraordinary explanation. Epidemiological studies indicate that more than 2% of the general population hears voices, and of these individuals, only a third present significant psychopathological disturbances that lead them to seek professional help (Tien, 1991).
A third objective is to modify misconceptions about voices through group-organized learning experiences. This learning is designed not to reduce the experience of hearing voices per se, but to reduce the perceived power of the voices to distress or harm.
How do Voice Listener groups work?
At this point, we only need to outline exactly how a Voice Hearers Group works. The guidelines are few. A group of people who share the experience of hearing voices and the presence of one or two professionals are necessary. The professionals' role is that of facilitators, trying to create a warm, safe, and respectful environment so that the different group members can speak about their experiences freely. As facilitators, their main function is not to try to impose their own beliefs on the group members. They also try to foster debate and dialogue, aiming to make it a source of hope (Hidalgo, 2020).
Within this open methodology, what guides the proper functioning of any group of Voice Listeners are the specific objectives:
- Supporting people who hear voices.
- Encourage discussion (since it stimulates acceptance of the experience of listening to voices and helps cultivate a healthy identity).
- Achieving a better relationship with the voices (a more assertive and negotiation-oriented relationship).
- Explore the possible meanings of the voices.
- To accompany people in finding affirmation and validation, and thus recognize their own situation in the experiences of others.
- Facilitate dialogue (since while avoidance can evoke feelings of helplessness and anxiety, dialogue can reduce isolation and fear).
- Help to identify patterns (for example, associating negative feelings with a negative voice).
- To make the dysfunctional process of listening to voices functional.
- To transmit hope.
At the beginning of this article, I mentioned Mireia and Sara, my introduction to the world of Voice Hearers groups, and the reason I'm here. Now that we're wrapping up, I want to talk to you. While many people who hear voices have comforting, pleasant, or neutral experiences, others are overwhelmed by fear or distress. When this happens, the idea of finding ways to make sense of and cope with these voices can seem strange, frightening, or unrealistic. If you're reading this and identify with this situation, or think someone you love might be feeling this way, contact an organization that can offer you this support resource .
In times like these, listening to people who are going through or have gone through a similar journey and can share the wisdom they've learned along the way is very healing and encouraging. These groups are formed for you, to offer tools and strategies for recovery, with mutual support and the certainty that it's possible to live in a less conflictive way with the voices or with other unusual experiences, such as sensing presences or having visions.
Featuring
