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Hearing Voices Research and Development Fund receives $250,000 in funding

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Coming to a town near you: real help for voice hearers

The Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care is pleased to announce that its Hearing Voices Research and Development Fund has received $250,000 in funding for a 3-year project to bring Hearing Voices peer support groups to communities across the United States and to research the mechanisms by which these peer-support groups work.

The project will train more than 100 facilitators in 5 regions of the country and create a stronger regional and local infrastructure of Hearing Voices peer support groups across the US. People who hear voices, see visions, or experience other unusual perceptions, thoughts, or actions have long been diagnosed as psychotic and given a poor prognosis. Medications provide only partial help and their benefits typically diminish over time while destructive physical and psychological side effects become increasingly problematic.

For the past 25 years, the Hearing Voices Network (HVN), an international collaboration of professionals, people with lived experience, and their families and friends has worked to develop an alternative approach to coping with voices, visions, and other extreme states that is empowering and useful and does not start from the assumption of chronic illness (see www.hearing-voices.org, www.hearingvoicesusa.org, www.intervoiceonline.org). A large scientific literature now provides support for key aspects of this approach, and the hundreds of peer-support groups that have developed in 30 countries on 5 continents are enabling voice hearers – even those who have been chronically disabled – to learn to cope more effectively or to rid themselves of the negative effects of their voices.

The US lags far behind other countries in offering this important new approach, and the new funding provides crucial support as more and more mental health organizations across the country seek training to start their own hearing voices peer-support groups. An open competition will be launched in April to choose the 5 project regions, with participants selected using a rigorous model in which mental health professionals and voice hearers collaborate in an intensive shared learning experience that itself illustrates HVN’s concepts and methods.

Equally crucial to the project is an ongoing research component that will allow identification of the distinctive components of hearing voices peer-support groups and better explain what enables them to provide such an effective and positive alternative for people diagnosed with psychosis. “This effort promises to be a movement that will measurably advance mental wellness and recovery for people in distress, their families and the community across the nation,” said Gina Nikkel, President and CEO of the Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care. “Hearing voices can be truly terrifying for the person experiencing them and for their loved ones. Hearing Voices Network support groups transform the fear into understanding and then empowerment.”

The Hearing Voices Research and Development Fund is jointly administered by Gail A. Hornstein, Professor of Psychology, Mount Holyoke College, and Jacqui Dillon, National Chair, Hearing Voices Network, England. Their more than 10-year collaboration models the kind of engaged research and advocacy that the project seeks to foster. More background on the project administrators can be found here. Read their recent article on hearing voices groups here.

Key partners in the project include Mount Holyoke College and the Western Massachusetts Recovery Learning Community, based in Holyoke, MA, which has pioneered the training of HVN facilitators in the US as part of its broader mission to “create conditions that can support healing and growth for individuals and the community as a whole.”

She gives us all deep insights, courage, and powerful ideas.

We have been gifted to have Jacqui deliver training for us in Melbourne, Australia, and look forward to her third installment in May this year.

Jacqui’s messages continue to resonate here in Australia, and we are so happy to see more and more mental health workers willing to work with the impacts of trauma.

People who have attended Jacqui’s training tell us frequently how deeply it has affected them, and how much they have learnt, and changed, as a result. She gives us all deep insights, courage, and powerful ideas.

Don’t stop this important work Jacqui – your gifts are immeasurable!

Indigo Daya, Project Manager, Voices Vic, Melbourne, Australia.

Transforming pain and loss into a force for good

I have had the pleasure of hearing Jacqui speak on numerous occasions, and – once – the honour of running a training programme with her, for 100 psychiatrists – on when and how to take abuse histories. Jacqui is a remarkable person who knows how to harness pain and loss and transform it into a force for good.

I can unreservedly recommend her to anyone considering running a mental health training or education event. You will be inspired and informed at the same time.

Professor John Read, Psychology Department, University of Auckland.

Mad In America

I’m off to America tomorrow to help spread the word about the pioneering work of the Hearing Voices Movement. On Monday I will deliver the first session of the ‘Starting Hearing Voices Groups Training’ at the Western Massachusetts Recovery Learning Community. It will be great to be a part of these important developments particularly as Gail attended the very first Hearing Voices Group Facilitation training that I ran in London back in 2005.

This training looks to continue the positive momentum of the Hearing Voices Movement in the United States, with the primary purpose of training people to start their own Hearing Voices Groups in the local area. I will be facilitating the training along with Oryx Cohen, Director of the National Empowerment Center’s Technical Assistance Center and former Co-Facilitator of the RLC Hearing Voices Group in Holyoke and Gail Hornstein, Professor of Psychology at Mount Holyoke College, Co-Facilitator of the RLC Hearing Voices Group and author of Agnes’s Jacket.

On Tuesday I will be interviewed by a filmmaker about my work, meet with members of the Recovery Learning Community in Worcester before going to deliver my presentation at Mount Holyoke College entitled –

Bad Things That Happen to You Can Drive You Crazy! –

Understanding Abuse, Trauma, and Madness and Working toward Recovery.

See this link for further information: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/news/stories/5682743

On Wednesday I will travel to Framingham where I will give a presentation at Advocates, Inc.

Before I fly back home on Thursday evening, I will meet Robert Whitaker, author of Mad in America and Anatomy of an Epidemic. Bob has agreed to speak at a fundraising event for the Hearing Voices Network when he is in London in November – watch this space for further info!

From Vicarious Trauma to Transformation

I’ve just got back from delivering a 2 day training course with Eleanor Longden on Abuse, Trauma and Dissociation, to 35 mental health professionals in Shrewsbury. I was really struck by people’s willingness and commitment to staying with some really difficult material. We spoke about the importance of having good support and the need to take really good care of ourselves when working directly with trauma, to protect us from the effects of vicarious traumatization.

Vicarious trauma, the process of change that happens because you care about other people who have been hurt, and feel committed or responsible to helping them, can lead to changes in your psychological, physical, and spiritual well-being. When you identify with the pain of people who have endured terrible things, you bring their grief, fear, anger, and despair into your own awareness and experience. Your commitment and sense of responsibility can lead to high expectations and eventually contribute to your feeling burdened, overwhelmed, and perhaps hopeless. Vicarious trauma, like experiencing trauma directly, can deeply impact the way you see the world and your deepest sense of meaning and hope. Vicarious traumatisation is not the responsibility of clients. Organisations that provide trauma-related services bear a responsibility to create policies and work settings that facilitate staff (and therefore client) well-being. Each trauma worker is responsible for self-care, working reflectively and engaging in regular, frequent, trauma-informed supervision. There are many ways of addressing vicarious traumatisation. All involve awareness, balance, and connection.

Beyond vicarious traumatisation lies vicarious transformation. This is the process of transforming one’s vicarious trauma, leading to spiritual growth. Vicarious transformation is a process of active engagement with the negative changes that come about through trauma work. It can be recognized by a deepened sense of connection with all living beings, a broader sense of moral inclusion, a greater appreciation of the gifts in one’s life, and a greater sense of meaning and hope. Vicarious transformation is a process, not an endpoint or outcome. If we can embrace, rather than fending off, other people’s extraordinary pain, our humanity is expanded. In this receptive mode, our caring is deepened. People who have suffered trauma and abuse can feel that we are allowing them to affect us. This reciprocal process conveys respect. We learn from trauma survivors that people can endure horrible things and carry on. This knowledge is a gift we can pass along to others.

Due to popular demand we will be offering further courses this year on Abuse, Trauma and Dissociation in Nottingham, Cork and in London. See events section for further information.

An extremely effective developer of services

I have known Jacqui Dillon for several years now — we first met in the early 2000s when she attended the London-based Critical Mental Health Forum, in which I was also involved.  Jacqui has been an extremely effective developer of services in the third sector.  She developed the London Hearing Voices Project and has also chaired the national Hearing Voices Network for several years.

She is a thoughtful and innovative worker who builds good collaborative relationships both with those who use mental health services and with mental health professionals.  She has also been very effective in securing funding for those organisations with which she works.

I work on a clinical psychology training programme and Jacqui has taught sessions on a range of topics on our programme for several years now.  Trainees have said that she is a very engaging and inspiring speaker who also has lots of practical advice about how to bring change in mental health services.

When I’ve seen Jacqui speak I also have been moved and inspired.  Given her earlier career as a journalist it is no surprise that she has been doing more writing, recently co-editing Living with Voices.  She has a national and international reputation and is approached by a range of media organisations for comments in relation to voice hearing and mental health more generally.

Dr Dave Harper, Reader in Clinical Psychology, University of East London. Academic Tutor on the Doctoral Degree in Clinical Psychology programme.

A highly skilled, empathic teacher

I have employed Jacqui Dillon on a number of occasions, both as a trainer of mental health-care workers, and as a workshop facilitator with professional and service-user participation.

Jacqui is a highly skilled, empathic teacher who through her work and experience is an inspiration and motivator to all, promoting innovation and much-needed change in the way we approach psychiatry today.

Trevor Eyles
Developmental Consultant, Social Psychiatric Services
Aarhus Kommune, Denmark

Challenging and inspiring

We have used Jacqui on our undergraduate and master’s Social Work courses for the last few years as well as on our AMHP training courses. Jacqui presents an articulate and powerful view of mental illness which is both challenging and inspiring to our students and staff. Feedback from students is overwhelmingly positive, many stating it is the highlight of their course, and that Jacqui’s message is one that will stay with them for life. I personally feel that anyone with any contact with mental health issues should attend Jacqui’s training, and that if more people accepted her views, the lives of people diagnosed with mental illness could be vastly improved.

Robert Goemans, Professional Social Work Lead, Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust & Lecturer, University of Lincoln.