
v01ce5
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 11, 2007
- Messages
- 160
The Hearing Voices Network is featured inTime Magazine Not bad for a grassroots organisation!
Extract below:
"HVN seeks to recast the phenomenon as a normal experience, encouraging members to maintain a dialogue with their voices so they can live peacefully with and even appreciate their presence. Studies suggest that these auditory hallucinations emerge following traumas ranging from the death of a loved one to outright abuse, so HVN encourages members to address the phenomenon with these origins in mind. In the past six years, HVN in England has doubled its number of support groups to more than 160 local chapters, and similar groups have cropped up in 17 other countries, from Japan to Finland.
The HVN prescription flies in the face of traditional psychiatry, which prefers that patients take antipsychotic medication and ignore their voices, and warns that acknowledging them intensifies hallucinations. But according to Dr. Marius Romme, a psychiatrist and former professor at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, "Accepting voices is the one precondition to start the process of recovery." He argues that the mind uses this internal chatter to alert people to unresolved trauma: studies by Romme and others estimate that 50% of cases have experienced some form of abuse, and their voices tend to take on characteristics of their tormentors. "The road to recovery," says Romme, "involves getting a better view of that relationship."
Extract below:
"HVN seeks to recast the phenomenon as a normal experience, encouraging members to maintain a dialogue with their voices so they can live peacefully with and even appreciate their presence. Studies suggest that these auditory hallucinations emerge following traumas ranging from the death of a loved one to outright abuse, so HVN encourages members to address the phenomenon with these origins in mind. In the past six years, HVN in England has doubled its number of support groups to more than 160 local chapters, and similar groups have cropped up in 17 other countries, from Japan to Finland.
The HVN prescription flies in the face of traditional psychiatry, which prefers that patients take antipsychotic medication and ignore their voices, and warns that acknowledging them intensifies hallucinations. But according to Dr. Marius Romme, a psychiatrist and former professor at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, "Accepting voices is the one precondition to start the process of recovery." He argues that the mind uses this internal chatter to alert people to unresolved trauma: studies by Romme and others estimate that 50% of cases have experienced some form of abuse, and their voices tend to take on characteristics of their tormentors. "The road to recovery," says Romme, "involves getting a better view of that relationship."