Welcome To Talking About Hearing Voices
The purpose of this forum is to encourage discussion and debate about the meaning of the voice hearing experience (auditory hallucinations) and to consider the latest research into this phenomenon.
If you find the forum interesting, why not leave a message and tell us what you think, even if it"s just to say hello. We appreciate the feedback. You can help direct the way this site develops. What issues would you like to see covered on the forum? Would you like to tell us about your experience? Is there anything you'd like to know or anyway we can help?
We hope to hear from you.
The forum has been established by INTERVOICE - The International Network for Training, Education and Research into Hearing Voices , with affilliated national networks in nine countries (see below for details) and links with six other countries (USA, New Zealand, Australia, Norway, Switzerland and the former Soviet State of Georgia).
What is INTERVOICE?
We have established a formal network to:-
- increase the quality and quantity of mutual support available to all people and organisations involved.
- make our work more effective and develop more ways of helping voice hearers cope with their experience.
- ensure that this innovatory approach on voice hearing is better known by voice hearers, families, professionals and the general public.
Alliances
- We have learnt that alliances are the way forward in developing new ways of working with people who hear voices. Because the experience prevents some voice hearers from living a fulfilled life in society (especially those in psychiatric and social care regimes) and leads to having a very poor quality of life. Our objective is to enable voice hearers to change their relationship and attitude to their voices and be able to take up their own lives again.
The most important factor in the success of this approach is the importance placed on personal involvement of the participating voice hearers and professionals. This means we see each other first as people, secondly as equal partners and thirdly as all having different but mutually valuable expertise to offer. This can either be through direct experience of hearing voices or having worked with voice hearers. The network therefore will focus on facilitating relevant assistance and solutions that improve the life of voice hearers in the knowledge that these methods have been co-developed by voice hearers and professionals. It is most important to us that the proposed network embodies these guiding principles and is structured in such a way that it safeguards and develops them amongst the founding and future members.
We believe that what we have discovered about the meaning of voices is of great significance to voice hearers and society at large. It is important, therefore that we promote this information in a more systematic way to ensure that our message is clear and coherent. INTERVOICE (brochure and newsletter available from address below)has therefore been set up as a vehicle to develop practice in assisting voice hearers to cope with their experiences by:
SERVICES
1. TRAINING:
Offering training programmes to mental health workers. Run by members of the Network this training is aimed at assisting voice hearers who have been diagnosed with serious mental illnesses. We have discovered that by increasing the availability of practitioners who can work with voice hearers through training key workers we can play a part in helping people to recover from the overwhelming difficulties they currently face.
2. NETWORKING
Developing partnerships with other organisations in further evaluating the impact of this work and of course to increase imput into policy and practice fora
3. INFORMATION
Getting the work better known through inclusion on data bases on the internet.
4. RESEARCH
Commissioning further research particularly with respect to people with different cultural traditions and perspectives.
MEMBERSHIP
For membership details see the INTERVOICE Information pack available from INTERVOICE, c/o Community Integrated Care, 2 Old market Court, Miners Way, Widnes, Cheshire, WA8 7SP, ENGLAND Tel: + 44 151 4203637, Fax: + 44 151 495 3146 or e mail p.cbaker@ctv.es
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