Voices are Real: Finding Meaning and Value in Our Experiences

Caroline Mazel-Carlton and Marty Hadge

This interactive workshop will explore common and uncommon beliefs regarding the experience of hearing voices and other unusual sensory perceptions. National trainers from the Western Mass Recovery Learning Community and the Hearing Voices USA Network, will present on the perspectives and research of this approach. Helpful healing strategies, beyond simple distraction, will be discussed. Participants will be able to identify at least two strategies, beyond medication or distraction, that some voice hearers have found helpful. They will also be able to identify at least three frameworks (beyond bio-medical illness) to explain voice hearing, and at leat two new developments in the Hearing Voices Movement. Participants will receive information on how to replicate the successes of HVN in their communities.

Possible Goals and Objectives Listed Separately:

1. Participants will be able to identify at least 3 other frameworks for why people might experience voices or visions beyond "bio-medical illness".

2. Participants will be able to name at least 2 strategies to navigate a challenging voice-hearing experience beyond medication or distraction.

3. Participants will become familiar with at least 2 new developments in the Hearing Voices movement that have occurred in the United States in the past year and ways to bring them to their communities.