International Hearing Voices Movement

The future looks very bright

2011-05-09T05:04:00.000-07:00

I have now been in Australia for almost 9 weeks. It is definitely becoming a place we know almost as well as the UK. In fact talking to locals we realize we have travelled more extensively around Australia than most Australians. That is also true for us back in the UK , there are not many towns in the UK that either Ron or I haven’t been.

This has given us a fantastic opportunity to network, develop our idea’s on recovery, see how different places are taking forward recovery and unfortunately watch the same mistakes being made as each country strives to take services forward. Some parts of Australian mental health services do not look dissimilar to things that were happening in England 20 years ago. You could also argue the same in some parts of Scotland.

Where psychiatrists hold a substantial part of the power it seems to have been a lot harder to move towards a recovery vision of services. Beds seem to be a power base, as do the number of clients you have on your caseload. The systems tend to be more hierarchical with top down decision making, of course there are exceptions to this rule. In Australia poly pharmacy is regularly practiced & surprisingly instead of drug of last resort, Clozapine is very often given to very young people with only one episode of psychosis.

There are exceptions to the rule, Trieste manages with very few beds & have very developed community services & these developments have been implemented by psychiatrists. In Bethlehem hospital a Croatian psychiatrist Ivona along with the nursing staff are taking recovery forward. In West Cork Dr Pat Braken leads the way. In South London & Maudsley & St Georges an excellent paper has just been published “Recovery is for all-Hope, Agency and opportunity in psychiatry, a position paper by consultant psychiatrists. Dr Richard Warner from Bolder Colerado USA is also vey recovery focused.

What you do find though, is that where the state services are still lagging the voluntary sector is very forward thinking. Here in WA Joe Calleja & his staff at Richmond fellowship have led the way in both backing recovery & funding the Australian hearing voices network.

In Tasmania Anglicare, Aspire, Mission Australia, GROW & RFTAS are developing the recovery agenda with other N.G.O organisations. Although to be fair on the state services they have been heavily investing in training for all staff in taking recovery forward led by many enthusiastic professionals including Ellen Cross from their workforce development unit.

In Scotland SAMH took this role for many years though sadly this no longer seems the case.

England has a strong voluntary sector, Rethink being one of the leaders, St Mungo’s is another example as a homeless charity that has embraced the principles of recovery.

I think the future looks very bright I do not believe that recovery can be buried as another fad, more and more people are seeing the connectedness between trauma & mental distress, my dream is that in the future we will be concentrating on a wellbeing agenda, building resilience in our kids, and actively aware of spotting early on the signs of trauma & dealing with it effectively & early.

Working across the world to spread positive and hopeful messages about the experience of hearing voices

Child's suicide raises medication questions

2010-01-18T00:39:00.000-08:00

Little bodies sink into adult-sized conference chairs.

With crayons between their fingers, they color on a sheet of paper after writing promises to their parents -- "to control my anger," "to make good grades" and "to go to the good side" when deciding what path to take in life.

In a room at Halifax Health Behavioral Services on Jimmy Ann Drive, 10- and 11-year-olds are dealing with adult issues -- depression and mood swings.

N-J | David Massey
Walter Grimes reads to his great aunt Carrie Hill at home in Holly Hill.

For Walter Grimes, 11, his quiet demeanor is a sharp contrast from court documents describing a child in a school summer program who bit a teacher on both of her arms and punched and kicked her in the face. Walter, who was 10 at the time, was taken to Halifax Health Behavioral Services under the state's Baker Act as a threat to himself and others and charged with battery on a school official, records show.

Therapy and psychotropic medication -- medicine used for psychiatric reasons such as mood stabilizers, stimulants and drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder -- are helping him stay calm and concentrate, his therapist and great aunt said.
The question of how much is too much and how young is too young when it comes to prescribing psychotropic medications -- some that are not approved for children by the Food and Drug Administration -- is a statewide and national debate.
In Florida, 81,961 children covered by Medicaid were on psychotropic medications from January to June 2009, compared to 76,358 from January to June 2008, according to the state Agency for Healthcare Administration. Numbers for private health insurance companies are not public.
Local agencies are seeing a rise in the number of children with psychiatric problems, from severe anxiety to depression. They're also seeing more young children who are 5 or 6 years old. The concern is especially high in foster care, where a higher percentage of children are given psychotropic drugs than in the general population.
The April 2009 death of a South Florida 7-year-old foster child, Gabriel Myers -- who was prescribed several mind-altering drugs and hanged himself in his foster home -- sparked a statewide review and recommendations in November that will result in new rules and legislation in the coming months for children under foster care.
"We must do better for our children," said Alan Abramowitz, former local DCF administrator and state director of the DCF Family Safety Program Office. "Medication is not the cure-all."
Adderall is the psychotropic medication prescribed statewide in foster care to the largest number of children for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, DCF records show. Locally in foster care, the main psychotropic drug being prescribed is Seroquel for mental/mood conditions.
Some child advocates question whether medications -- some of which have serious side effects such as suicidal thoughts -- are being used as a quick fix to behavioral problems that children will grow out of because their brains are still growing.
"It shouldn't take mind-altering medications to help children grow up," said Karen A. Gievers, a child advocate and an attorney in Tallahassee. "It takes good parents to help children grow up."
Others say some children need medications to help them concentrate and succeed in life. Some are being exposed to more violence at home and dealing with issues not seen a decade ago.
"We get children who haven't giggled or laughed or smiled in years," said Shirley Holland, department manager at Halifax Health Behavioral Services, the local community mental health provider for children. "Once we add medication, it's like the light goes on. They experience life in a completely different way. It doesn't mean the burdens go away, but life is not so heavy."
MORE CHILDREN BAKER-ACTED
Halifax Health Behavioral Services has seen the number of children admitted under the Baker Act as a danger to themselves or others almost triple in Volusia and Flagler in a three-year period. The agency treats about 3,000 children in all its programs -- more than half are on psychotropic medications.
The reasons behind the rise are unclear, but some point to children being subjected to more stress at home.
Holland said it would be unusual about 20 years ago to see a 12-year-old who was psychotic, hearing voices and hallucinating, but "they are younger than that now."

Working across the world to spread positive and hopeful messages about the experience of hearing voices

I felt like I was crazy

2009-11-27T07:06:00.000-08:00

I felt like I was crazy’

When Kamara Langenbrunner was 8, she started hearing voices. The first time it happened, the Cloquet girl, now 10, was staying at a Minneapolis women’s shelter with her mom and siblings. “I thought someone was really there and talking to me,” Kamara said. “I heard it say, ‘I am going to stay here and not go away until you do what I say.’ ”

By: Sarah Horner, Duluth News Tribune

Kamara Langenbrunner, 10, sits with her purple violin at her Cloquet home. Kamara, who was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder a couple of years ago, says playing the violin has helped her through the process of dealing with the disorder. (Clint Austin / caustin@duluthnews.com)

Working across the world to spread positive and hopeful messages about the experience of hearing voices

The 7-Year-Old Schizophrenic

2009-10-15T03:04:00.000-07:00

Taken from the Oprah Winfrey website, October 6th 2009, click on title for full story - you can send your comments too. We are writing open letter to Oprah about the very troubling approach the docotrs are taking in "treating" Jani.

The 7-Year-Old Schizophrenic

A child's imagination has no bounds. Some boys and girls pretend to be astronauts and mermaids. Others run alongside imaginary friends. But, for a few children around the world, the mind conjures hallucinations that never go away. At times, these make-believe visions even lead to violent behavior.

Michael and Susan Schofield know all too well how mental illness can affect a child's life. Their 7-year-old daughter, Jani, has been diagnosed with one of the most severe cases of childhood schizophrenia Jani's doctors say they've ever seen.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, schizophrenia is a chronic, disabling brain disorder that may cause a person to hear voices and misinterpret reality. In some cases, schizophrenic patients believe people are plotting to harm them, which causes extreme agitation or depression.

Jani may be younger than most people with schizophrenia, but she battles the same demons. In her case, hallucinations take the form of imaginary children and animals. There's a little girl named 24 Hours, a rat named Wednesday, and a cat named 400 who tells her to do bad things.

Working across the world to spread positive and hopeful messages about the experience of hearing voices

How can I make the voice in my head stop?

2009-10-11T15:20:00.000-07:00

Very unhelpful advice given to voice hearer, taken from CNN 6th October 2009, for a more useful approach go to www.intervoiceonline.org

Expert Q&A

Q. I am a 50-year-old male and have been experiencing a voice talking to me. I lost most of my central vision about 11 years ago from a virus and am legally blind. I was diagnosed with depression two years ago by my doctor and he put me on 20 mg of paroxetine a day. I have always been an antisocial person but even more so after losing most of my vision. For the last several months there has been a voice talking to me. It just carries on normal conversations and warns me of various things, remarks about the news, people, daily activities (don't eat that, eat this instead), stay away from this or that person because they are out to harm you, your neighbors are watching you, etc. What is happening to me? Can you give me some suggestions on how to make the voice stop? I would greatly appreciate any suggestions you can give me. Thank You

A. ... Whatever else you do, keep telling yourself that the voice comes from a malfunction in your brain and under no circumstances pay any heed to what the voice says.

Working across the world to spread positive and hopeful messages about the experience of hearing voices

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Manchester | Man jailed for killing stranger

2009-09-22T14:45:00.000-07:00

BBC NEWS UK England Manchester Man jailed for killing stranger: "Man jailed for killing stranger

Sidney Waller was stabbed in the neck
A man who stabbed a stranger to death in Manchester after hearing voices in his head has been jailed for life.
Paul Cusack stabbed joiner Sidney Waller, 67, in the neck on Mauldeth Road West in Withington before calling police to confess to the killing.
Cusack, who has a history of mental illness, admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
Mr Waller's family has demanded to know why Cusack, 32, was able to live in the community with little supervision."

Working across the world to spread positive and hopeful messages about the experience of hearing voices

Hearing Voices – Underpinnings of Auditory Hallucinations | Brain Blogger

2009-09-22T14:40:00.000-07:00

Full article here: Hearing Voices – Underpinnings of Auditory Hallucinations Brain Blogger:

"Hearing Voices – Underpinnings of Auditory Hallucinations
September 22, 2009 By Dirk Hanson, MAcloseDirk Hanson, MA Name: Dirk Hanson
Site: http://addiction-dirkh.blogspot.com/

About: Dirk Hanson is a freelance science writer and the author of 'The Chemical Carousel: What Science Tells Us About Beating Addiction.' He is also the author of ''The New Alchemists: Silicon Valley and the Microelectronics Revolution.'' He has worked as a business and technology reporter for numerous magazines and trade publications. He currently edits the Addiction Inbox blog. Share, Save, and Bookmark

In “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind,” Julian Jaynes suggested back in 1976 that schizophrenia — like spirit possession and imaginary playmates — was a vestige of our brain’s bicameral heritage. Jaynes believed that in man’s early history, the left and right hemispheres of the brain did not “talk” to each other. They failed to communicate effectively across the corpus callosum, the bridge from one hemisphere to another. The result was, to Jaynes, obvious: People used to hear voices. Nowadays, most people who hear voices inside their head are diagnosed as schizophrenics."...

The past few years have also seen the development of a radical counter-movement that seeks to normalize the act of hearing voices. The movement is said to have originated in the Netherlands and the U.K. Intervoice, which bills itself as “the international community for hearing voices,” says they have found that many people who hear voices “are not troubled by them or have found their own ways of coping with them outside of psychiatric care.” Those voice hearers who are “overwhelmed by the negative and disempowering aspects of the experience” are often diagnosed as schizophrenics — “a harmful and stigmatizing concept,” in the opinion of Intervoice.

Working across the world to spread positive and hopeful messages about the experience of hearing voices

Will Hall - reports on the World Hearing Voices Congress

2009-09-19T14:13:00.000-07:00

World Hearing Voices Congress in Holland (with audio)

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By MadnessRadio - Posted on 14 September 2009

Hi everyone, happy World Hearing Voices Day. I'm terribly jet lagged but just arrived in Valkenburg Holland for the World Hearing Voices Congress. (also check out the audio)

Staying in a bungalow with Rufus May and some other great UK dissident mental health professionals, long conversations over forced treatment, suicide, addiction, shamanism, Voice Dialog, Theater of the Oppressed... I'm giving a workshop on coming off medications this thursday.

A great honor to be invited, and a wonderful chance to meet others and allies in the mad movement -- and learn more. You can follow things at my Portland Hearing Voices twitter feed here: http://twitter.com/pdxvoices and the tag #hearingvoices

Please check my twitter feed at www.twitter.com/pdxvoices for notes from the congress.

Congress photos on my flickr feed here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/willflickr/sets/72157622396976958/show/

Listen to the talk on Psychiatry at War With Itself - including replacing 'schizophrenia' with a new diagnosis - by J Van Os of the Netherlands -- the talk is highly recommended: 09HearingVoicesCongress-JVanOsPsychiatryAtWarWithItself.mp3

Leading UK advocate Ron Coleman's talk 09HearingVoicesCongress-RonColeman.mp3

Excerpt of UK Hearing Voices Network Director Jacqui Dillon's talk 09HearingVoicesCongress-JacquiDillon(excerpt).mp3

Brendan George on working with dual diagnosis: BrendanGeorgesonDualDiagnosis.mp3

Voice Hearer Eleanor Longden: 09HearingVoicesCongress-EleanorLongden.mp3

Will Hall workshop on Coming Off Medications 09HearingVoicesCongress-WillHallComingOffMedications.mp3

Working across the world to spread positive and hopeful messages about the experience of hearing voices

Impressions of the First World Hearing Voices Congress, Maastricht, 17-18 September 2009

2009-09-19T14:01:00.000-07:00

Bill George:

The Congress vividly illustrated the difficulty of balancing half truths against their counterparts. I thought the most well balanced presentation was that of Will Hall of the Icarus Project.

The conclusions I came away with from the whole were:

1.Some people who have hallucinations are not ill.

2.Both those who are ill and those who are not ill may benefit from review of their life experiences. (Caveat: I did not have the opportunity to mention that on the course Werken met Eigen Ervaring [Working with One’s Own Experience] that I attended two of the students collapsed and one resigned owing to the intensity of the emotions generated. B.G.)

3.Psychiatry sometimes does more harm than good, and at other times it is just not helpful.

The most convincing of the contributions were the recovery stories of the survivors. It is not possible to summarize them without losing their ring of authenticity. I was enthralled by the story related (in the third person) by Jacqui Dillon (UK), but would not be able to do it justice.

John Read (Australia) said the public understands that the main causes of psychoses are bad things happening, not genetics or chemicals. People who had suffered abuse are nine times more likely to suffer a psychosis; and people who had suffered from bad abuse are 48 times more likely. Service users do not agree with the psychiatric profession that questions about what happened to them in the past should not be asked.

Ron Coleman (UK) was the most dramatic and fluent speaker. Voices are not the problem – it is how you respond to them. The DSM is a comic book. “We can smell bullshit when we are offered it.” Our job as workers is to make ourselves redundant. Recovery is not an easy journey and it cannot be measured. There is no general recovery model – it is individual. Workers should dare to tell their own story.

John Watkins (Australia) said the title of his book Healing Schizophrenia was deliberately ambiguous. It was meant not only healing in the usual sense but also the healing of the concept. Some people are not distressed by the voices. They range from benign voices to pathological voices. They are not confined to people with mental health problems. Some people hear their name when falling asleep or waking up. Carl Jung referred to the tendency to split in 1937, also to sub-personalities. Usually it is not just a voice but a being attached to the voice.

Jim van Os (Netherlands) was against the bio bio bio model. Social factors play the main role. Schizophrenia as a single symptom or illness does not exist. People have various combinations of symptoms – a syndrome. The new DSM is expected to refer to dimensions

of particular types of symptoms. Don’t give up on psychiatry; but don’t expect rapid change. People and systems are conservative.

Marius Romme (Netherlands) spoke very wisely as the elder statesman about the “healing voices experience”. But you could see his age in his manner of delivery. Psychiatrists and nurses should accept as true what people say is happening to them. Parents and doctors should give the person back the power they had taken away from them. The emotions should be allowed to connect with the voices. The voices tell about what has happened. The message they give is in order to solve a problem. The voices themselves are not psychoses. They make links to life history. It is wrong that it is forbidden to talk about the voices. The DSM should go back to emotional treatment. The therapeutic relationship with the voice hearer is important. People should be helped to cope with their emotions.

Will Hall (Icarus Project) said there was a continuum between “medication saved my life” and “medication destroyed my life”. Many people are helped by medication; others not. Coming off medication should be done gradually; although a few people have succeeded to come off cold turkey. The mistake is to think One Size Fits All. Our trust in doctors has gone down. Many don’t know the facts about medication. (I can confirm this! B.G.) People are often not informed of their options. The reason the deep down things are not talked about is because of the Blame Culture. There is a fear of taking the blame if something went wrong. In America it is the Litigation Culture.

Richard Bentall (UK) said we should make the doctors listen. They should show warmth and empathy. There is little to choose between the different schools of therapy: the Dodo Conjecture (Alice in Wonderland); every competitor wins!

The most remarkable contribution was from Brian Hartnett (Ireland). His experience is of two realities – the consensual reality and another reality in which there are voices and much more. And yet Brian is clearly not psychotic. A historical figure who had a comparable experience was Emanuel Swedenborg.

19/09/2009 20:14

Working across the world to spread positive and hopeful messages about the experience of hearing voices

'Mad’ men and women embrace their mental health issues | KATU.com - Portland, Oregon | Local & Regional

2009-09-04T14:57:00.000-07:00

'Mad’ men and women embrace their mental health issues KATU.com - Portland, Oregon Local & Regional:

"More than eight million Americans with either bi-polar disorder or schizophrenia are fighting the stigma of mental illness by embracing their “madness”, not suppressing it.

Will Hall has schizophrenia, but he said years of medication only made his condition worse.

“All my life I’ve experienced really difficult extreme states, hearing voices, seeing visions,” he said. “I felt like my creative emotional self was blunted and shut down and it really didn’t help me with any of the anxiety or fear I was experiencing.”

Hall chose more holistic treatments such as yoga, vitamins and a new diet over pharmaceuticals.

This idea came from the Mad Pride movement, a new and growing grassroots movement of people (as reported by ABC) with serious mental disorders who are rejecting traditional psychiatric treatments and standing up against the shame associated with mental illness.

“I’ve learned to really accept this as part of who I am rather than seeing, like oh, being very terrified of it and saying I have to get rid of it or have to stop everything but accept it as part of a natural rhythm and cycle of my life,” said Hall."

Working across the world to spread positive and hopeful messages about the experience of hearing voices

Hearing voices can be positive Tasmania News - The Mercury - The Voice of Tasmania

2009-09-04T14:49:00.000-07:00

Hearing voices can be positive Tasmania News - The Mercury - The Voice of Tasmania:

HELEN KEMPTON

September 01, 2009

A NETWORK is being set up to support the estimated 20,000 Tasmanians who experience auditory hallucinations.

Hearing Voices Network Australia soon will be operating in Tasmania under the auspices of Richmond Fellowship Tasmania.

Hearing voices was not always a symptom of mental illness, Richmond Fellowship Tasmania chief executive Patrick Carlisle said.

'In many cases, voices can be positive. There have been many famous high achievers who have contributed very significantly to society who have identified themselves as a voice hearer, including Leonardo da Vinci, Winston Churchill, Gandhi and (actor) Anthony Hopkins,' he said.

Research has found that about 4 per cent of the population hears voices but only 0.5 per cent of those are eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia."

Working across the world to spread positive and hopeful messages about the experience of hearing voices

Hearing voices? You're not alone - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

2009-09-04T14:46:00.000-07:00

Hearing voices? You're not alone - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation): "Hearing voices? You're not alone
Aug 27, 2009 7

Hearing voices: New support groups are offering help for people who suffer from auditory hallucinations

Audio: More Australians seeking mental health help (AM) Audio: Hearing Voices network launched in Victoria (AM) Mental health researchers estimate that about 4 per cent of people experience auditory hallucinations, where they hear voices.

In Australia, the problem has typically been treated with medication. But a network of self-help groups that has been successful overseas is now gradually being rolled out around the country.

Janet Karagounis started hearing the voices of her imaginary friends when she was 8, but by her late 20s the voices were more sinister and she ended up in a psychiatric unit.

'Basically I had aliens, I had government conspiracies, every couple of years I basically was put in a psychiatric unit and I was first diagnosed chronic schizophrenic,' she said.

'That wrote me off so to speak. I had no hope, no future, no chance of working. And yeah, now my life is glowing.'

Ms Karagounis credits a Hearing Voices group for turning her life around and she's now a group facilitator."

Working across the world to spread positive and hopeful messages about the experience of hearing voices

BBC NEWS | Health | Embracing the dark voices within

2009-09-04T14:34:00.000-07:00

BBC NEWS Health Embracing the dark voices within: By Chloe Hadjimatheou
BBC World Service, 03/09/2009

Peter Bullimore explains how he deals with the voices in his head.

British psychologist, Rufus May is taking an unusual approach to schizophrenia by encouraging his patients not to battle against their voices - but to embrace them."

Suspect's odd ways unnerved others - San Jose Mercury News

2009-09-01T06:15:00.000-07:00

Suspect's odd ways unnerved others - San Jose Mercury News: "Garrido announced plans to give up the printing business and preach full time. Last year, he launched a company, God's Desire. His blog, called Voices Revealed, describes a fascination with mind control and the ability to hear the voices in people's heads.
'The Creator has given me the ability to speak in the tongue of angels in order to provide a wake-up call that will in time include the salvation of the entire world,' he wrote.
He asked to conduct a sermon at the Pittsburg wrecking yard JM Enterprise, according to owner Jim Molino, often engaging in religious discussions and distributing bottles of cold water to customers.
And he urged customers to sign testimonials confirming they had witnessed his ability to 'control sound with my"

Working across the world to spread positive and hopeful messages about the experience of hearing voices

Britney's Hearing Voices ... Again?

2009-09-01T06:09:00.000-07:00

Britney's Hearing Voices ... Again?

For last year's VMA promos, host Russell Brand literally ignored the 300-pound elephant in the room as he chatted with Britney Spears. In the 2009 version, Brit and the Brit refuse to stoop so low as to use her one-time mental illness for sympathy votes ... but they aren't above using it for comical effect.

Working across the world to spread positive and hopeful messages about the experience of hearing voices

Hearing voices can be positive Tasmania News - The Mercury - The Voice of Tasmania

2009-09-01T06:03:00.000-07:00

Hearing voices can be positive Tasmania News - The Mercury - The Voice of Tasmania: "HELEN KEMPTON
September 01, 2009 04:00am
A NETWORK is being set up to support the estimated 20,000 Tasmanians who experience auditory hallucinations.
Hearing Voices Network Australia soon will be operating in Tasmania under the auspices of Richmond Fellowship Tasmania.
Hearing voices was not always a symptom of mental illness, Richmond Fellowship Tasmania chief executive Patrick Carlisle said.
'In many cases, voices can be positive. There have been many famous high achievers who have contributed very significantly to society who have identified themselves as a voice hearer, including Leonardo da Vinci, Winston Churchill, Gandhi and (actor) Anthony Hopkins,' he said.
Research has found that about 4 per cent of the population hears voices but only 0.5 per cent of those are eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia.
The new network will give Tasmanians affected a chance to meet and talk, share coping strategies and explore ways to work with the voices rather than against them.
The network will begin training support staff and facilitators in November with the aim of starting meetings early in 2010.
For more information, contact Richmond Fellowship Tasmania on 6228 3344"

Working across the world to spread positive and hopeful messages about the experience of hearing voices

'The myth of the chemical cure'

2009-08-14T16:52:00.000-07:00

BBC NEWS 15/08/2009 Full Article here

'The myth of the chemical cure'

VIEWPOINT
Dr Joanna Moncrieff
Mental health expert

Taking a pill to treat depression is widely believed to work by reversing a chemical imbalance.

Medication is a mainstay of mental health therapy

But in this week's Scrubbing Up health column, Dr Joanna Moncrieff, of the department of mental health sciences at University College London, says they actually put people into "drug-induced states".

If you've seen a doctor about emotional problems some time over the past 20 years, you may have been told that you had a chemical imbalance, and that you needed tablets to correct it.
It's not just doctors that think this way, either.
Magazines, newspapers, patients' organisations and internet sites have all publicised the idea that conditions like depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder can be treated by drugs that help to rectify an underlying brain problem.
People with schizophrenia and other conditions are frequently told that they need to take psychiatric medication for the rest of their lives to stabilise their brain chemicals, just like a diabetic needs to take insulin.
The trouble is there is little justification for this view of psychiatric drugs.

Working across the world to spread positive and hopeful messages about the experience of hearing voices

Stalking Irish Madness: An Interview with Patrick Tracey, PsychCentral, 30 June 2009

2009-07-06T23:21:00.000-07:00

PsychCentral, 30 June 2009
2) I love your description of schizophrenia in the beginning of the book: “Schizophrenia is not a case of snapping back and forth between different personalities–a common misconception. Schizophrenia is the hearing of voices, but the hallucinations can be seen, felt, and smelled as well as heard. It’s fright night for life for many, an all-consuming terror that never ends.” Wow. What a description. What do you think the most common misconceptions are about the illness?
Patrick: There’s only one misconception that must be cleared up, and it’s a massive one. There is widespread ignorance about the experience of hearing voices, having verbal or auditory hallucinations, and this is the most common experience of schizophrenia. If we could just start thinking of schizophrenia as hearing voices, then this would clear up a lot of confusion right off the bat. People would begin to understand the experience from the point of view of the person having it.
Unfortunately, our ignorance has been abetted by fear. For so long, the idea of engaging therapeutically with verbal hallucinations has been viewed with boneheaded suspicion. This needs to change. The evidence is in. This one shift in attitude could open the flood gates to healing and recovery.
The correction has been firmly planted in Europe, the first glimmer of hope coming twelve years ago with the beginning of the Hearing Voices Network in Maastricht. Their meetings have since flourished in Europe. For some reason this more opened-minded attitude has taken much longer to reach and root itself in the United States. It will though–it’s absolutely inevitable like all irrepressibly good ideas. Working across the world to spread positive and hopeful messages about the experience of hearing voices

Doctoring the Mind: Why Psychiatric Treatments Fail by Richard Bentall: review

2009-07-06T23:14:00.000-07:00

Daily Telegraph, 05/07/2009

Full story here

The message of Doctoring the Mind is that the West’s dependence on drugs to treat mental illness is madness ... Bentall argues for a new approach to severe mental illness ... In this person-centred model, the patient partly defines his own recovery. He may consider, for example, that he is better off continuing to hear voices (so long as those voices do not trouble him or others) than he is living on a strong drug regime which makes him unable to work, enjoy either a social or a sex life, or contribute to society.

Working across the world to spread positive and hopeful messages about the experience of hearing voices

Mad Medicine: A New Group for People Who Hear Voices Celebrates Mental Illness Diversity

2009-06-28T14:37:00.000-07:00

The Portland Mercury, 25th June

Full story here

AN AVERAGE-LOOKING, middle-aged man stood in the public meeting room of the downtown Multnomah County Library, asking a question. He was having trouble distinguishing "dream from reality," and he wondered why he should bother to do so when the information he is given turns out to be verifiable and useful. (Once, he was instructed to overturn an empty cup left in a phone booth—and when he did, he happily discovered someone else's forgotten pocket money left underneath.) A woman then stood and spoke of the series of spiritual transformations she has gone through, mentioning that her Catholic phase was initiated by a vision she had of the Virgin Mary. ("Why else would you become a Catholic?" she cracked.) Another younger man admitted that he has embraced the "spirituality of nothingness" after finding that meditation only exacerbated the noisy mind from which he hoped to find relief.

They were all attendees of the first-ever gathering held by Portland Hearing Voices, a new group that has formed to address the spectrum of circumstances surrounding the experience of hearing voices, seeing visions, and holding extraordinary beliefs. If the language sounds deliberate, consider that commonly accepted words like "crazy" and "deluded" are steadily developing the dark shroud of epithet among those who are beginning to recognize that our society's understanding of mental diversity is, at the very least, oversimplified.

Mad Pride

Most people, even many of those working within the mental health system, are only dimly aware of the issues being raised by groups like Portland Hearing Voices (PHV). Nonetheless, the questioning of traditional approaches to experiences that are usually associated with schizophrenia has become quite common, particularly in the UK. (PHV's kickoff event featured a screening of the hour-long BBC documentary Hearing Voices, produced as early as 1995.) While the Portland group is among the first of its kind in the United States, intervoiceonline.org, an international network and online community for voice hearers, estimates that there are over 170 Hearing Voices groups in England alone.

Working across the world to spread positive and hopeful messages about the experience of hearing voices

Psychiatry and Oppression: A Personal Account of Compulsory Admission and Medical Treatment

2009-06-22T12:41:00.000-07:00

See original version here

April 9, 2009

Schizophrenia Bulletin 2009 35(4):661-663; doi:10.1093/schbul/sbp025

Benjamin Gray, Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury, UK

Introduction

Dr B.G. is an academic and researcher in the field of mental health and was also diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2003, when he spent a total of 12 months in a mental health hospital. In this article, he relates his personal experience and story to make a polemical and admittedly one-sided case against traditional psychiatry and compulsory medical treatment. He ties his experience to espouse a modern antipsychiatry. Dr B.G. concludes that there needs to be more attention paid to voice hearers’ stories and accounts of mental illness, which he links to the rise of democratic psychiatry and the growth of the hearing voices movement, headed by organizations such as Intervoice, Asylum, MindFreedom, and the Hearing Voices Network.

Hearing Voices: A Personal Story

Certainly, my negative conception of traditional psychiatry and compulsory treatment is colored by the 12 months that I spent in a psychiatric acute unit.

Discussion: The Rise of Democratic Psychiatry and the Hearing Voices Movement

A Call for the Personal Stories of Voice Hearers

To whom correspondence should be addressed; tel: (01206) 82 3828; e-mail: btgray@hotmail.com.

Two Day Treatment of Auditory Hallucinations by High Frequency rTMS Guided by Cerebral Imaging: a 6 Months Follow-up Study

2009-06-22T10:39:00.000-07:00

Newswise, 12 June 2009

Researchers us a technique called Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation to treat hallucinations.

Newswise — Auditory hallucinations are one of the more disturbing features of schizophrenia, and tend to persist even when patients are treated with conventional medication treatments. Researchers from the University of Caen, France, report on a new treatment for hallucinations at the meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping. They used a technique called Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation- rTMS, which sends magnetic pulses at high frequency (20 Hz) over the brain surface. By placing the pulses guided by anatomical and functional cerebral imaging over the auditory cortex where hallucinations are generated, they found a significant reduction in auditory hallucinations that lasted for nearly 2 weeks following the treatment; 2 patients were hallucination free after 6 months. While the study is still preliminary, it suggests the potential for 20 Hz- rTMS as a new, noninvasive approach to treatment of schizophrenia that is relatively safe and free of side effects.

Authors: S Dollfus, A Montagne-Larmurier, A Razafimandimby, R Morello, O Etard
Centre Hospitalier Universitaire, Caen, France

"Psychiatric diagnoses are less reliable than star sign "

2009-06-22T10:32:00.000-07:00

"Psychiatric diagnoses are less reliable than star signs" The psychologist Richard Bentall says that psychiatrists dish out drugs but ignore the value of good relationships

Times Online 22/06/2009 Full story here

Complain to your doctor about a mental health problem and you will probably leave the surgery with a prescription for drugs, despite increasing doubts about their effectiveness and fears about side-effects. The prevailing wisdom is that psychiatric disorders are genetically based brain diseases, biological abnormalities that can be controlled with medication. Every year, doctors in England dole out 31 million prescriptions for antidepressants alone.

Looking beyond medicine to treat mental illness: A conversation with psychology professor Gail A. Hornstein

2009-06-15T13:57:00.000-07:00

Amhurst Bulletin, June 05, 2009

Full story here

Key sections of the book discuss the work of the Freedom Center, a Northampton-based advocacy group for people diagnosed with mental illness. Founded seven years ago, the Freedom Center stresses choice in treatment. Run by people diagnosed with mental illness, the center offers support groups and other activities aimed at helping to control psychotic episodes.

"Northampton should be particularly proud," Hornstein says, "because it's one of the leading activist and support organizations of its kind in the country."

In the United Kingdom, she attended meetings of the Hearing Voices Network, comprising more than 160 support groups for those who hear voices in their heads. The members say that talking about their voices, and their feelings about them, helps them cope with what can be frightening experiences, Hornstein said.

Impressed by the work of the HVN in Europe, Hornstein became a trained facilitator and now co-leads a Hearing Voices group, one of the first of its kind in this country, that meets at the Recovery Learning Community in Holyoke.

You can buy book here

Woman who killed daughter may get out of prison next month

2009-06-15T13:52:00.000-07:00

ksl.com, June 9th, 2009

Full story here

UTAH STATE PRISON -- In extremely emotional testimony, Wendy Bullock described "the voices" that led her to kill her 2 1/2-year-old daughter, Sarah.

On Tuesday, 34-year-old Bullock appeared before the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole for her first hearing. Her hands shackled at the waist, she strained to wipe her eyes as she told a parole board member about her years-long battle with mental illness.

"I started hearing voices, and I didn't understand it was mental illness," she said. "I thought it was God or the Holy Ghost or other people's thoughts. The voices continued to get worse."

In 2004, those voices led her to put her daughter in her car and drive from Salt Lake City to an area near Moab. She thought she could see snipers. She thought she could see police cars and helicopters. She thought they were all going to harm her and her daughter.

"The voices were telling me that society was going to hurt my daughter in the worst way, and that God wanted me to send her to a better place," Bullock cried, describing how she choked Sarah to death.

The voices didn't shut up, but Bullock realized what she had done. She said she tried to kill herself -- shoving a pencil in her ear and cutting herself with a dull pocketknife. The voices didn't stop.

It was then a passer-by found her, and she asked for help. Bullock was arrested and later pleaded guilty, but mentally ill, to child abuse homicide. She served sometime in the Utah State Hospital and later wound up at Point of the Mountain.

Are Spiritual Encounters All In Your Head?

2009-05-25T14:14:00.000-07:00

NPR, 19th June 2009

Full story

According to polls, there's a 50-50 chance you have had at least one spiritual experience — an overpowering feeling that you've touched God, or another dimension of reality.

So, have you ever wondered whether those encounters actually happened — or whether they were all in your head? Scientists say the answer might be both.

There's no place like strange

2009-05-25T14:08:00.000-07:00

The Age, 23 May 2009

Full story

Will Elliott maps a journey to the 'other side' in his battle with schizophrenia, writes Owen Richardson.

WILL Elliott's first book, the award-winning The Pilo Family Circus, describes a descent into the underworld: feckless young Jamie is kidnapped by psychotic clowns and taken into an alternative universe of pain and fear and demonic conspiracy.

The main character in his new book, Strange Places, also takes a wild and disorienting journey: the television tells him it knows what he's been up to, he comes to understand that his family is out to get him, and one night he sees the moon blown up by a nuclear weapon.

The difference between the two books is that the main character of Strange Places is called Will Elliott, and what the book describes actually happened to him.

In his late teens and early 20s Elliott underwent two psychotic episodes, the second of which ended with his being diagnosed as schizophrenic. Now 30, Elliott hasn't experienced a relapse and has decided to tell the story, at some cost to his present comfort.

"To go back and immerse myself in it, and especially the first symptoms in the early days, it was embarrassing for me," Elliott says. "It was the opposite of pleasant nostalgia, to keep going back over that and checking that it was all arranged properly was the worst part for me. I don't know how it is going to be having other people reading these intimate and not exactly flattering details."

Creative minds: the links between mental illness and creativity

2009-05-25T14:04:00.000-07:00

The Independant, 5th May 2009

Full story here

At first glance, Einstein, Salvador Dali, Tony Hancock, and Beach Boy Brian Wilson would seem to have little in common. Their areas of physics, modern art, comedy, and rock music, are light years apart. So what, if anything, could possibly link minds that gave the world the theory of relativity, great surreal art, iconic comedy, and songs about surfing?

According to new research, psychosis could be the answer. Creative minds in all kinds of areas, from science to poetry, and mathematics to humour, may have traits associated with psychosis. Such traits may allow the unusual and sometimes bizarre thought processes associated with mental illness to fuel creativity. The theory is based on the idea that there is no clear dividing line between the healthy and the mentally ill. Rather, there is a continuum, with some people having psychotic traits without having the debilitating symptoms.

The voices that help improve care

2009-05-25T13:56:00.000-07:00

BBC News, 18 April 2009

Full story

Janey Antoniou has schizophrenia. She regularly hears voices and has paranoid delusions.
But when the emergency services try to help her, or others like her, they can end up making things much worse.

In a bid to try and prevent misunderstandings, Janey, with the use of a tape filled with competing voices, has been coaching ambulance service staff on the world of schizophrenia.
"I see the world differently from other people. I have delusions which can lead me to do strange thing such as walking around London all night trying to get away from a Filipino army.

Bullying may make kids psychotic, study suggests

2009-05-25T13:44:00.000-07:00

Reuters, May 4th 2009

Full story here

People who are bullied as children have twice the risk of having delusions, hallucinations or other psychotic symptoms as pre-teens as those who have not been bullied, British researchers said on Monday.

They said bullying -- especially when it is severe or chronic -- can have serious consequences for some children, and may even act as a trigger for people who are genetically predisposed to schizophrenia.

"Chronic or severe peer victimization has nontrivial, adverse, long-term consequences," Andrea Schreier of the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, and colleagues wrote in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Several studies have shown that traumatic events in childhood such as physical or sexual abuse are linked with the development of psychosis in adulthood. And people who display psychotic symptoms in childhood are more prone to develop schizophrenia as adults.

Officers hearing voices in their heads: police learn what it’s like to be mentally ill

2009-05-25T13:39:00.000-07:00

Journal Times, 11 May 2009

Full article here

“Turn your voices on,” Racine Police Officer Chris Cronin told two fellow officers at a special police training last week.She was referring to MP3 players that simulated the experience of hearing voices, which is a symptom of schizophrenia.It was part of Racine County’s first weeklong Crisis Intervention Team training, which is training for a core group of officers from across the county to recognize people with mental illnesses and help prevent those people from ending up in the hospital or jail.With voices coming from headphone speakers alternating between whispering and repeating negative statements, the officers had to fill out a resume and play cards together.

Burlington Police Sgt. Michael Madsen, left, and Mount Pleasant Police officer Dale Swart play cards on May 4 while listening to a recording that simulates hearing voices in their heads at Gateway Technical College. They are participating in Crisis Intervention Team training, which teaches officers to recognize signs of mental illness and to techniques to help those people.

They had to concentrate while the voices said things like “loser, loser, loser” and “You’re not funny. It’s not a joke. Everyone knows about you.”The officers only listened to the voices for about 10 minutes, but it was enough to give them a picture of what life would be like for someone with schizophrenia.“I could fairly well ignore it. But I don’t know how long term I could do that for,” said Dale Swart, a Mount Pleasant Police officer. “I think after a while it would literally break you down.”

I talk back to the voices in my head

2009-04-18T14:58:00.000-07:00

The Guardian, 4th April 2009

Full story here

Dean Smith of Stockport and Hearing voices Network member.

I was working as a holiday rep in Brittany 15 years ago when I started hearing voices. I was in my mid-20s and thought it was my mates mucking about. I looked inside and outside the flat to see where they were. It felt really scary, because the voices were saying stuff like, "Right, you're having it" and, "We'll get you in the end."
Over the next four days, the voices taunted me more and more, and I became depressed and paranoid. I had a strong desire to be with my family - I had no money, but I got back to my mum and dad's house in Stockport by hitchhiking and dodging fares. The train journey was particularly harrowing: the voices convinced me everyone was talking about me.
My family were brilliant. My mum used to care for my auntie, who had mental health issues, so she had some insight, and my dad was very patient with me. My visits to the GP were less successful - I was put on antidepressants and, when they didn't work, antipsychotics. They didn't work either, and by now I was regularly hearing three, one laughing in a wicked kind of way, the other two using abusive and threatening language.
The voices got me down so much that I started self-harming. I wound up getting sectioned several times. I was put on heavy medication and encouraged to spend my days playing games with the other patients - anything to distract the voices. Each time, I'd come out being a fantastic Scrabble or blackjack player, but none the wiser about the voices.
Ten years ago, at 29, I was told I had paranoid schizophrenia. Friends - well, people I thought were friends - immediately associated the diagnosis with knife-wielding murderers. A lot of them stopped having anything to do with me. I realised I'd been given a label that comes with a huge stigma and a prescription of potent, but in my case useless, medication.
I remained keen to find out about innovative treatments, and finally, at a mental health seminar, I heard a speaker talk about an approach advocated by growing numbers of mental health professionals that involves people engaging with the voices inside their head. He was from the Hearing Voices Network and I agreed to visit him. He said I should be frank and uncompromising with the voices. If they told me to self-harm, I should just say no. "If anyone else told you to put your finger in the fire, you wouldn't, so why act on what they say?" he said. He added that if I wanted to know why they were there, I should ask them, and if I wanted them to go away, I should tell them. It was so simple, but it made so much sense.
I took his advice, questioning them, challenging them and even cutting them off if I didn't have time to talk to them. I'd say things like, "I'm watching TV now, I'll talk to you later" or "Why exactly do you think I deserve it when bad things happen to me? You can't answer that, can you?" Sometimes I'd do it in my head; other times out loud. I began to recognise the voices as representing the negative feelings I had about myself, and that alone helped me feel less frightened of them. It's not that they aren't real, but they ceased to have the power over me they did. I began to realise they couldn't carry out their threats.
Now they bother me a lot less and, when they do, I'm in control of the conversations. I'll still talk out loud to them if I feel like it, even if I'm on the bus or in the street. I get some funny looks, but I don't mind.
Recently another voice appeared, but this one is positive and happy, sounding like me as a young teenager. He's mischievous, but funny, and I quite enjoy chatting with him.
I'm off medication now and have been discharged from mental health services. I've got my own place and have a girlfriend, and I train nurses and mental health staff in helping others to engage with their voices. The fact that I can speak with genuine understanding means I usually have a captive audience. I also work with people who hear voices, getting them to understand the benefits of talking back.
I've learned that my voices themselves are not a problem. It's my relationship with them that's important. Facing them and working with them has changed my life and made me feel optimistic about it instead of scared.

In Touch With the Dead and With Life

2009-04-18T14:46:00.000-07:00

New York Times, 16/04/2009

Full story here

“I’m afraid of mankind; I’m not afraid of dead folks,” confessed Concetta Bertoldi, a 55-year-old Jersey-born psychic and medium who makes a snappy living (check out the snow-white customized Audi and the devilish red Porsche Boxster in her garage) siphoning messages from the dead, whose observations don’t alarm her, to the living, whose behaviors often leave her cold.....

..... She told her parents the voices were terrifying her; her father told her that until she was ready to deal with the dead and the affirmations they wished to convey to those they had left behind, all she really needed to do was command them to, in the name of God, go away. So she did, and they obliged.

“At that stage of my life I wanted to date guys, not talk to dead guys,” she said. She barricaded her unusual ability (“I call it an ability, not a gift; gift sounds too pompous”) in a closet in her mind for more than a decade and, outwardly at least, led a normal life as a receptionist.....

.... Ms. Bertoldi came out about her tête-à-têtes with the dead a decade ago. When she told her husband she wanted to quit her day job and start using her ability “to help other people gain peace and comfort,” she said he was, at first, skeptical but not unsupportive. “Everybody has a right to believe whatever they want about mediums and psychics; I think of it like cable TV,” she said. “If you don’t like the program, don’t watch.”

CASL launches petition calling for the abolition of Schizophrenia Label

2009-04-18T14:45:00.000-07:00

The Campaign for the Abolition of the Schizophrenia Label is petitioning the UK Prime Minister - calling for the abolition of the diagnosis of schizophrenia on the grounds that it is outdated, unscientific and stigmatising, presenting as a barrier to effective and appropriate care/support to the individuals diagnosed with this label. If you live in the UK or are a UK citizen click here to sign the petition.

There is also an International Petition calling for the abolition of the schizophrenia label, you can sign it here

Find more about the Campaign for the Abolition of the Schizophrenia Label visit their site here

See article by Marius Romme about why he thinks the SZ label should be abolished here

World Hearing Voices Congress

2009-04-18T14:41:00.000-07:00

THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL HEARING VOICES CONGRESS, Maastricht, 17th - 18th September 2009
Book your place now

17th & 18th September 2009 to be held in in Maastricht, Holland.

Booking details and provisional programme now available here you can help publicise the congress by downloading and displaying our flyer here

For the first time we are bringing together experts by experience (voice hearers) – alongside a multidisciplinary group of workers - from the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Italy, Australia, New Zealand and the United States who together will present experiences, research findings and results from practice.

Our World Congress will provide evidence to support the growing recognition that it is essential for voice hearers to understanding their own experience -and - why it is important for voice hearers to accept their voices, as part of themselves, in order to learn to cope with them. Further, we will explore why it is essential for professionals to acknowledge the value of the experience in order to assist and support people who hear voices and/or experience psychosis.
Join us at our ground breaking congress and participate in the sharing of experiences, practice and research with over 70 presenters.

Reserve a place at the conference
To reserve a place at the conference, for information about the venue and about staying in Maastricht, email Gina Habets here.

Sponsorship
We would also like to ask your help to raise funds for the Congress. All sponsors will be acknowledged in our promotional material and conference programmes. If you or your organisation would be willing to help by becoming a sponsor please see the sponsorship letter here

Greyhound bus murderer avoids jail time

2009-03-09T03:15:00.000-07:00

Canwest News Service, March 4, 2009

Full story here

WINNIPEG - The man who beheaded a passenger on a Greyhound bus in one of the most gruesome crimes in Canadian history has been found not guilty of second-degree murder.
Queen's Bench Justice John Scurfield ruled Thursday morning that Vincent Li was not criminally responsible for his nightmarish actions of July 30, 2008, when he killed 22-year-old Tim McLean near Portage la Prairie, Man.

Details of the crime - which made news around the globe - emerged this week at a trial marked by tight security and fears that vigilantes might try to harm the 40-year-old Li.

Li was hearing voices in his head - which he believed came from God - telling him to eliminate ``the force of evil'' by attacking the sleeping McLean, psychiatrists said.

Li stabbed the carnival worker to death, then beheaded and cannibalized the body.

New dialogues on voices

2009-02-18T09:55:00.000-08:00

Psychminded, February 13, 2009

Full story here

Cognitive behavioural therapy has long been accepted as a valid therapeutic intervention for people who hear voices. So what does the future hold for more radical approaches, such as voice dialogue, asks Adam James.

Rewind to 1993. It was the year Accepting Voices by Professor Marius Romme and Sandra Escher was published.

The book argued that voices (aka aural hallucinations) experienced by people diagnosed with psychosis should be accepted as real. Don’t pathologise and seek to rid people of voices. Better, help people cope with them, they argued.Some professionals were truly alarmed. In the British Medical Journal, Raymond Cochrane, a professor of psychology, slammed the book’s message as “potentially dangerous”. It meant colluding with delusions, he argued

In April last year the scientific community was similarly perturbed. This time after clinical psychologist Rufus May was shown on a television documentary using “voice dialogue” to help a voice-hearer. Directly communicating with the voices of a woman diagnosed with bipolar disorder was one of the psychological interventions Dr May used.

Dr May was also “dangerous” and should be reported to the British Psychological Society, NHS psychiatrists wrote on the bulletin board of doctors.net.uk. One of Dr May’s colleagues at Bradford NHS Trust joined the fray, accusing May of “flagrant self promotion”. “Don't let him [Dr May] near me if I become mentally ill,” weighed in Lisa Brownell, a psychiatrist at Queen Elizabeth Psychiatric Hospital in Birmingham.

But supporters of voice dialogue – involving conversing with a person’s voices to understand that person’s life experiences and the voices’ “motives” – point to some similarities it has not only with traditional cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) but with a new wave of CBT techniques. These include Person-Based Cognitive Therapy (PBCT), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and Relationship Theory. The solid “evidence-base” of CBT was recognised seven years ago when the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) recommended it be available for all people diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Psychiatric drugs causing weight gain

2009-02-18T09:44:00.000-08:00

Full story: Canada.com, Canada

Now you don’t even have to be hearing voices. If you have intense moods, you might be put on an antipsychotic now.” According to prescription drug tracking ...

Harvard University psychologist Paula Caplan warns of a vicious cycle, where patients who experience weight gain after taking psychotropic drugs are reluctant to discontinue their use.
“If they gain weight, they think ‘I can avoid fast foods, or I can take smaller portion sizes or I can exercise more.’ But to think, ‘go off my medication that I believe is responsible for my being able to function, is too scary.’”

In a recent article in the magazine New Scientist, Caplan says new revelations that some antidepressants are virtually no better than a placebo for all but the most severe cases of depression “make the potential scale of the side effects more worrying than ever.”
She believes the widespread use of psychiatric medications among adults and children is making the obesity epidemic worse.

Writing in New Scientist, Caplan says obesity among teens and younger children has risen over the past 10 to 15 years with a five-fold increase in prescriptions of anti-psychotic drugs to those age groups, and that “children taking these drugs are even more likely to gain weight than adults are.”

Man gets death for ‘02 killings`

2009-02-17T22:44:00.000-08:00

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thursday, February 12, 2009

Full story here

A judge issued a rare Fulton County death sentence Wednesday for a man convicted of murdering his girlfriend’s 12-year-old son and her grandparents in a fit of rage more than six years ago.

....The defense attorneys contend Martin is schizoprhenic because he reports hearing voices and hallucinates. But Lance Cross, one of the prosecutors, said there is no “credible evidence” Martin is mentally ill.

The unmedicated Martin shows no outward signs of schizophrenia and no cellmates or guards reported him hallucinating or hearing voices, Cross said.

The boy whose gift became a curse

2009-02-17T22:29:00.000-08:00

Daily Telegraph, 16 February 2009

Full story here

How does a child genius from a loving family fall into a spiral of mental illness, addiction and finally suicide?

... By the age of 22 he was psychotic, having hallucinations and hearing voices. It was on her 50th birthday that Clare suggested they write a book together, describing his life from their individual points of view. She thought that his unusual ability to describe his own thought processes might help others. Titus agreed to the plan, he said in his introduction, because: "I have to find a reason for why my life has been so abominably chaotic."

Titus did want to get better. In 2006, he spent eight months in rehab in Michigan, where he seemed to be almost back to his old self. Clare and Ed, Titus's father, were exhausted by worrying about their son, impoverished by paying his debts and the cost of rehab, and fearful that his voices were driving him to violence. But Clare was never angry, only sad that her son couldn't sustain the good resolutions with which he left rehab. Sick of feeling doped, he stopped the medication, and his voices returned.

On December 16, 2006, as his parents were driving across a bridge into Manhattan, he opened the back door of the car, dashed out and jumped to his death. His psychiatrist told Clare that he probably jumped in order to save her because the voices were urging him to kill.

As a tribute to Titus, Clare has finished the book they were writing together, which she has entitled A Dangerous Gift. It has been published in Iceland, where the high rate of bipolar disorder has led to rehab programmes with a 70 per cent success rate. Sufferers are shown how to look after themselves and avoid the addictions that lead one in four to commit suicide.

State settles with woman’s family for $1.75 million over murder

2009-01-25T12:43:00.000-08:00

The Wenatchee World Online, WA - 23 Jan 2009

Marcille Robbins was 70 years old, but fought back when Todd Marsh broke into her Omak home on June 6, 2000, and beat her to death with a bathroom scale and coffee pot, according to police reports.

Three days earlier, Okanogan County mental health workers worried Marsh would hurt someone, and committed him at Eastern State Hospital, said Mark Leemon, a Seattle lawyer who represented the Robbins family.

"This fellow, when he was talking to mental health workers, told them he was going to kill someone, that he was hearing voices that he couldn't control, and that he knew he was going to hurt someone," Leemon said.

The state hospital released Marsh before the end of a 72-hour evaluation and brought him back to Omak with no plans for follow-up treatment, Leemon said. That night he killed Robbins.

Hearing Voices? Maybe Cut Back On Coffee

2009-01-23T14:56:00.000-08:00

A new study by a British university links high caffeine intake with hallucinatory experiences like hearing voices and seeing things that are not there.

The study out of Durham University quizzed 219 students about their consumption of coffee, tea, energy drinks and chocolate. The students were then asked about hallucinatory experiences and their stress levels. The survey is available online here. These finding were published Wednesday in the academic journal Personality and Individual Differences.

Full article here

Hallucinations common in adolescence

2008-12-30T15:59:00.000-08:00

6minutes, Australia - Dec 3, 2008

Full story here

Almost one in ten Aussie teens experiences hallucinations at some time but this doesn’t mean they’re more prone to psychosis or other mental illness, researchers say this week.

A national survey of more than 1200 adolescents aged 13-17 years old found that 8.4% reported either auditory or visual hallucinations such as hearing voices when they are alone or seeing things that other people think are not there.

The survey results, published in the journal Schizophrenia Research (online 29 Nov), showed that hallucinations were three times more common in children of single parent or divorced families and also more common in teens who used cannabis, but not in those who used alcohol. Hallucinations were also more likely to be reported by children with depression.

The study authors, from the Royal Children’s Hospital in Brisbane said that as in adults, hallucinations in teens could be a sign of previous psychological trauma. However, while hallucinations were frequent, they were part of a continuum and did not necessarily represent a risk of psychosis.

“Clearly most adolescents who experienced hallucinations in this study will not subsequently develop a psychotic disorder,” they noted.

Allen Ginsberg Vs. John Lofton

2008-12-30T15:47:00.000-08:00

From HARPER’S MAGAZINE, January 1990, Readings

LOFTON: But I am interested in this question of your possible madness. It’s not a gratuitous question. There is a history of madness in your family.

GINSBERG: Very much so.

LOFTON: Your mom died in 1956 in a mental institution. Before that. in 1949, when you were twenty-three. you spent eight months in the Columbia Psychiatric Institute. What was this psychiatric disability and why did you spend just eight months in this institute?

GINSBERG: Well, I had a sort of visionary experience in which I heard William Blake’s voice. It was probably an auditory hallucination, but it was a very rich experience.

LOFTON: This happened while you were masturbating, right?

GINSBERG: Yes, but after.

LOFTON: I want to ask you about this psychiatric disability.

GINSBERG: No, no, no. no, no, no, no, no. Sir, first of all your tone is too aggressive. You have to soften your tone, because there’s an element of aggression here. There’s an element almost like a police interrogation here.

LOFTON: But that’s not all bad. The police, in some instances, do a good job, particularly in dealing with criminals.

LOFTON: That’s interesting, because I’m not asking you to respond in any particular way. Why are you telling me how to ask questions? So, can we return to my question? What was this psychiatric disability that put you in an institute for eight months?

GINSBERG: Well, I’m not sure it really was a disability to begin with. So I can’t answer the question the way you pose it.

LOFTON: But I’m asking you if it’s true, that you had this disability?

GINSBERG: It’s neither true nor not true.

LOFTON: But it is true that you were in an institute?

GINSBERG: Yes, I was. I had a kind of visionary experience relating to a text by William Blake, “The Sick Rose.” It went: “O rose, thou art sick! / The invisible worm / That flies in the night / In the howling storm, / Has found out thy bed / Of crimson joy, / And his dark secret love / Does thy life destroy.” So, it’s a very mysterious, interesting poem that keyed off a kind of religious experience, a visionary experience, a hallucinatory experience—whichever way you want to interpret it. All three descriptions are applicable and possible. Reality has many aspects.

LOFTON: Were you using drugs while you masturbated and had this experience?

GINSBERG: Not at all. I had been living very quietly, eating vegetarian diets, seeing very few people, and reading a great many religious texts: St. John of the Cross, the Bible, Plato’s Phaedrus , St. Teresa of Avila, and Blake, So I was In a kind of solitary, contemplative mood.

LOFTON: Did you put yourself into this institute?

GINSBERG: More or less. Because I questioned my own sense of reality and I couldn’t figure out the significance of the illuminative experience, whether it was a kind of traditional religious experience, where there is a sudden sense of vastness and ancientness and respect and devotional awareness or sacredness to the whole universe. Or whether this was a byproduct of some lack-love longing and projection of my own feelings, or some nutty breakthrough.

LOFTON: Do you think you were better when you got out of there?

GINSBERG: I think they said I wasn’t ever really psychotic or crazy, just an average neurotic.

LOFTON: Did you go to anywhere else besides this institute?

GINSBERG: Oh, later—I’m going to a psychiatrist now.

Kaleidoscope of the Heart: Why do people think negatively?

2008-12-30T15:35:00.000-08:00

Mainichi Daily News, Japan - Dec 24, 2008

Full story here

"... When I am counseling my clients, sometimes I think the nature of human beings is negativity. Take auditory hallucination, a symptom of mental disorder, and which causes sufferers to hear voices or other noises generated unconsciously by their own minds -- so I wouldn't be surprised if they heard good things. However, most of these messages are bad things about themselves. I wonder why they don't hear compliments, such as "You're a genius" or "You're the most beautiful woman in the world." My guess is that it's probably because human beings are conditioned to think negatively."

The voices in your head...

2008-12-07T15:10:00.000-08:00

All in the Mind Blog, ABC Radio

This weekend's show features a roundtable with 3 people pushing the boundaries on this front. Dr Rufus May, Dr Sandra Escher and Dr Dirk Corstens - all active in the international "hearing voices community" - were in Australia this week at the Recovery from Psychosis conference held in Perth. They argue that auditory hallucinations, like those experienced in schizophrenia, aren't a meaningless symptom. Instead, they advocate probing the content of those voices - the good, the bad and the frightening - and "dialoguing" with the voices to better manage them and understand their origins.

Their approach does polarize. Some fervently disagree with their therapeutic strategy arguing that it is irresponsible and even dangerous. Others with a personal experience of voices find it refreshing, and something of a relief to have the nuances of their inner world acknowledged. And, a large number of folk in mainstream medicine now also recognise the limitations of a purely medical model for working with matters of the mind. To ignore the contents of auditory hallucinations, is to ignore the full experience of the person presenting to them, and where does that get anyone?

Note: See the comments in response to blog - very interesting

The voices within...

2008-12-07T15:06:00.000-08:00

All In The Mind, ABC Radio National, 8 November

Many people hear voices inside their head -- some are diagnosed with schizophrenia, others live privately with the experience. International leaders in the Hearing Voices Network gather in Australia this week, controversially challenging the belief that voices are a pathological symptom without psychological meaning. They argue people can find it therapeutic to 'dialogue' with the voices. Meet three clinicians pushing the boundaries.

Transcript here

Voices told him to kill

2008-12-07T15:00:00.000-08:00

Jamaica Gleaner, 2 December 2008

Psychologist Dr Kai Morgan testified ... that she conducted tests on Perry on three occasions this year. She said Perry told her that since 2006, he had been hearing voices. She said the condition was known as auditory hallucination.

Morgan said Perry told her that he was not having the hallucinations in 2005 or prior to that time .... the children were fatally stabbed between January 27 and 28, 2005, at their home in Killancholly. Perry gave a caution statement to the police on February 8, 2005 in which he said voices told him to kill. In the statement, he admitted entering the house through a window. He said he stabbed the children, who were sleeping.

LRAD (Long Range Acoustic Device)

2008-12-07T14:35:00.000-08:00

Strategy Page, 7 December 2008

LRAD (Long Range Acoustic Device) is basically a focused beam of sound. Originally, it was designed to emit a very loud sound. Anyone whose head was touched by this beam, heard a painfully loud sound. Anyone standing next to them heard nothing.... LRAD can also broadcast speech for up to 300 meters. The navy planned to use LRAD to warn ships to get out of the way. This was needed in places like the crowded coastal waters of the northern Persian Gulf, where the navy patrols. Many small fishing and cargo boats ply these waters, and it's often hard to get the attention of the crews. With LRAD, you just aim it at a member of the crew, and have an interpreter "speak" to the sailor. It was noted that the guy on the receiving end was sometimes terrified, even after he realized it was that large American destroyer that was talking to him. This apparently gave the army guys some ideas, for there are now rumors in Iraq of a devilish American weapon that makes people believe they are hearing voices in their heads.

‘Voices from the Shore’

2008-12-07T14:12:00.000-08:00

The Journal Times

December 1, 2008

The Park Theatre Department will present the drama “Voices from the Shore” by Max Bush

Joel and his best friend for many years, Lucas, are awaiting friends to attend a senior-year, spring-break, beach party. Joel seems abnormally tense as he and Lucas discuss their fears and hopes for the future. When Trisha, Holly, Rick, Laura, and Joel’s girlfriend, Beth, arrive, it’s clear that the friendship, dreams and concerns about the future after graduation are on the minds of everyone. Beth confronts Joel about their relationship; and as Joel’s anxiety level rises, we begin to understand that he is hearing voices. These voices insistently torment Joel resulting in him being admitted into an adolescent, acute-care psychiatric hospital. .... “Voices from the Shore” celebrates the anxieties, triumphs and glories of young adults struggling with understanding their changing dreams and with the responsibility for realizing them.

Teenager in death plunge ‘heard voices

2008-12-07T14:06:00.000-08:00

Islington Tribune: 5 December 2008

Teenager in death plunge ‘heard voices in her head’A TEENAGER plagued by “voices in her head” fell to her death from a friend’s flat in Angel.... Ms Baker had attempted to swallow pain-killers in August and had tried to jump in front of a moving car and from another building.The inquest heard from her boyfriend that she had spoken of hearing voices in her head and that hospital mental health assessments increased in the week before her death.

Study could change the way science thinks about mental illness

2008-11-14T01:57:00.000-08:00

Bernard Crespi, an evolutionary biologist at SFU, has developed a theory - with the help of Christopher Badcock, a sociologist at the London School of Economics - that suggests a "genetic tug of war" could be behind mental disorders such as autism and schizophrenia

.... At the other end of the spectrum, people with schizophrenia are often hyper-developed in sociality, Crespi said.

Their sense of self can be hyper-developed into megalomania, language is hyper-developed into hearing voices, and rather than feeling isolated, people with schizophrenia often feel as if they're being watched or plotted against.

Crespi says the theory could have significant implications for various therapies for mental disorders. He suggests it makes sense to encourage behaviours that are found at the opposite end of the spectrum. So, in people with autism, it would make sense to nurture and strengthen their social behaviours. And the opposite might be true for people with schizophrenia.
"If you have somebody who's schizophrenic . . . by these ideas, what they've got is kind of an overdevelopment of their social brain, if you will. And you basically want to encourage them to be less mentalistic, less over-interpreting with regard to sociality," he said.

"You essentially want them to become relatively more autistic in the way they think about the world."

Vancouver Sun, 14 Novmber 2008

Full article here

A Book of Silence, By Sara Maitland

2008-11-14T01:51:00.000-08:00

"... Her marriage "disintegrated" in the late 1980s. She "ran out of steam" as a writer. She went through "a phase of extremely vivid and florid 'voice hearing', or auditory hallucinations". She converted to Roman Catholicism. She moved out of the vicarage in the East End, bought a cottage in a tiny village in Northamptonshire, tested solitary life on Skye, moved to a house on a high moor near Durham, and finally to a remote moorland dwelling in Galloway, the landscape of her childhood.

For her, silence and solitude are "inextricably intertwined... I am a deeply socialised person; when I am with other people I find it nearly impossible not to be aware of them, and that awareness breaks up the silence." The greater the quiet, the more God can fill it. God is synonymous with silence. "

Review of "A Book of Silence", By Sara Maitland, Independent, 14 November 2008

Full article here

Responding helpfully to a child or young person who appears to be hearing voices

2008-10-14T13:41:00.000-07:00

HandsOnScotland Toolkit

The HandsOnScotland Toolkit is an online resource for anybody working with children and young people.

Full article here

It is common for young people to hear voices under certain circumstances. For example, a high fever, problems with diet and hydration and experimenting with drugs might all lead to hearing voices. It is quite normal for all of us to occasionally hear sounds or voices around the time that we are falling asleep or waking up. This is the result of there being an overlap between dreaming and being awake and is normally nothing to worry about.

It is also common for younger children to report on conversations they are having with an imaginary friend. Relationships with imaginary friends become important to some children as a mechanism to support them through periods of uncertainty or simply when they are alone and want someone to play with or talk to, in the same way that they will talk to a teddy bear or doll.
There is some evidence suggesting that 2-3% of the adult population hear voices but only one in three ever become a psychiatric patient. Many people function well with their voices.

Hearing voices can sometimes occur as part of a coping mechanism in response to a traumatic event or severe emotional distress, for example, sudden bereavement or abuse.

Hearing voices as part of mental illness is less common and would only normally occur in older teenagers. On occasion, other senses can be involved such as seeing or smelling things that are not real. When mental illness is involved there will usually be other signs that the young person is troubled, for example:

The young person might talk or laugh aloud as if having a conversation with an invisible person.
They may become withdrawn and less inclined to mix socially.
They may have difficulty in concentrating on studies or TV programmes, etc.
They may lose interest in normal activities.
Their thoughts and ideas may appear to be all mixed up and sound like nonsense.
They may talk about or express unusual or even bizarre ideas that they are having which are not shared by any other people, for example, the feeling someone is directly inserting thoughts into their mind or they are being spied on by the Government. They will not be persuaded against these beliefs by facts and logical argument.
Care in their appearance and self care may deteriorate.
They may become lethargic and lose motivation or be agitated and overactive.
It might be that hearing voices is not disclosed by the young person but others notice that they appear to be distracted or are acting out of character.

Young people who are hearing voices and are suspected of having serious mental health problems should be considered as vulnerable and may be a risk to themselves. Psychiatric advice should be sought as soon as possible and they will always be treated as a high priority by the local mental health specialists.

They Drove Them Insane

2008-10-13T13:55:00.000-07:00

The Daily Dish

11 October 2008

Full story

At the end of months of sleep deprivation and other forms of torture, Qahtani, according to an FBI letter, "was evidencing behavior consistent with extreme psychological trauma (talking to non existent people, reporting hearing voices, crouching in a cell covered with a sheet for hours on end)."

"However many you have going to Mars in a tin can, if someone has a major psychotic event they are going to have great difficulty handling that"

2008-10-13T13:41:00.000-07:00

Nasa looks to Antarctica for solutions to strife on Mars

The Scotsman

Full story

12 October 2008

Lugg did a 25-year study of documented behavioural health problems in Antarctica and said the incidence rate was 4% of all primary consultations to the base doctor."You have sleep problems, but what you are looking for are the classic psychosis episodes,"

Lugg said."There was a guy one year who heard babies cry. He came to the doctor and he said: 'I'm hearing voices.' Fortunately, he was able to be got out because it was just before the close of winter."While such cases were rare, having just one episode in Antarctica or in space could be disastrous. "However many you have going to Mars in a tin can, if someone has a major psychotic event they are going to have great difficulty handling that."

Sailing, solitude and hearing voices

2008-10-13T13:36:00.000-07:00

Jonny Malbon playing catch up

Vendee Globe, 13th October 2008

Full story

The prolonged solitude will also be a big challenge for him: " Three weeks is the longest I have been on my own on a boat. I did 12 days on the old boat and then 12 days on the new boat.

The first time I went out on my own I was hearing voices clearly which was eerie. I could hear key phrases constantly at the back of the boat, ‘Roger’ and ‘Ready’ and found myself talking to myself constantly, and responding out loud to things that I had not said, which was a bit disconcerting. And when I got back I was not any more mad.

This time I heard a lot less and said a lot less. But at one point I did say out load, unprompted ‘I don’t think so mate’. That was tiredness and stress. This time I was scared and more relaxed. Also this time I did not have the feeling there was someone with me the whole time which I did the last time. There was a point when I would go on deck and say ‘right we are going to gybe now’."

Taking a glimpse inside the mind

2008-10-13T13:25:00.000-07:00

Full story

By JUDITH LACY - Manawatu Standard, Sunday, 05 October 2008

At first, the voices are just irritating.

And incessant.

You can't make out what they are saying, but by the tone you know they are not wishing you a nice day.

In both ears, different voices, varying volumes.

Then you pick up the messages: repetitive, commanding, distressing.

"You are disgusting."

I turn off the tape.

It's part of the Hearing Voices That Are Distressing workshop, run in Palmerston North by Pathways to Wellbeing Huarahi Whakaoranga Inc.

The interactive, three-hour workshop gives participants insight into some of the challenges faced by people with experience of mental illness, MidCentral region co-ordinator Diana Oomen says.
But listening to the distressing voices is just part of the challenge for workshop participants.

God Saved Carlos Santana Seven Times From Suicide

2008-10-13T12:51:00.000-07:00

Source:One India

Full story

"I'm still hearing all this inner stuff, a thousand voices screaming at you, accusing you... but then I would just look at a picture of Jesus and say, 'Help me,' and then, very clearly, inwardly, I would hear this one voice that's softer and louder than all the others, and it would say, 'I'm sitting next to you. Isn't that enough?'"Once I heard that voice, something would shift, and I'd be able to find joy again in food and breathing," he added."

"Humour" and voices

2008-10-13T12:36:00.000-07:00

Deaf Man Hears Voices In His Head - Doctors Baffled

The Spoof

Written by Duncan Whitehead

06 October 2008

"They wouldn't even let him take a shower in peace. Poor sod. A man from Newport Pagnell, believed to be suffering from schizophrenia reported hearing voices in his head - despite the fact he has been deaf since birth!

Christopher Worm, 23, tried to explain to Doctors that he heard voices commanding him to do something on Saturday night - but as Christopher can only lip read and do sign language he had no idea what those instructions were.

After an extensive search for a psychiatrist who could understand sign language Christopher was able to explain that he has been hearing the voices intermittently for five years - he also has feelings of paranoia.

Renowned fake psychiatrist Harold K Nutt told me "Why these spirits and ghosts are picking on a deaf kid who can't understand them is beyond me. These poltergeists or aliens or little people in your head need to jump into a normal persons head and make them mad" confirmed Nutt, who was chewing a turd."

The story above is a satire or parody. It is entirely fictitious.

Voices and "Violence": recent press coverage of court case involving people who hear voices

2008-10-13T12:21:00.000-07:00

Jett Says Voices Tell Him To Act Out

San Antonio News, 10th September 2008

Full story

A convicted murder who acted out multiple times during his trial said Friday his actions were prompted by voices telling him what to do.

Richard Jett, sentenced to 99 years in prison this week for the June 2006 murder of 80-year-old Homer Daniels, said he suffers from a mental illness -- a claim court psychiatrists said the 50-year-old Jett faked.

During his trial, Jett wrote on his body and face with ink, showed up to court in boxer shorts after trying to flush clothes and smeared his own feces on himself.

Attorney says murder defendant 'hearing voices'

Bakersfield Californian
Full story

September 23, 2008

Saying his client was “hearing voices,” a defense attorney in a local murder trial made a last-minute request Monday for an evaluation to determine whether his client is mentally competent to stand trial.

The highly unusual request, coming just before opening statements were set to begin, was made by defense attorney James Faulkner on behalf of one of two defendants in the two-year-old murder case.

Superior Court Judge Michael Bush was clearly taken aback by the request. It’s been nearly two years since the defendant was arrested, and such requests are typically made well before trials begin.

Faulkner said the issue came up during a 90-minute talk he had with his client over the weekend.

Inmate Who Killed Cellmate "Was Hearing Voices"

Shortnews.com

Full story

19 September 2008

Jose Guadalupe Barrera-Rodrigu, a convicted double murderer at the Sacramento Main jail awaiting sentencing, has been rebooked after allegedly killing his cellmate, Demario Lavell Patterson. Both were being held in the protective custody unit.

According to Deputy DA Noah Phillips, Barrera-Rodrigu "was seen by the psych unit at the Main Jail and he had a complaint of auditory hallucinations. He said he was hearing voices ... telling him to hurt people and to kill himself."

When informed of Barrera-Rodrigu's psychiatric status, Patterson's mother cried "Oh my God. Why did they let Demario be in the same cell as him? Why?"

Officials have called the killing "just an unfortunate incident."

Voices told mom: baby was 'a demon'

The Reporter

8th October 2008

Full story

A young mother arrested for abandoning her baby at a Vacaville middle school informed police that voices had told her the baby was a demon, testimony revealed Tuesday in Solano County Superior Court.

At the conclusion of a 20-minute preliminary court hearing Tuesday afternoon, Judge Donna Stashyn ruled that sufficient evidence appeared to have been presented to hold 22-year-old defendant Brittaney Quewon-Owens for trial on charges of child endangerment and child abandonment.

Schizophrenia patients denied talking therapies

2008-09-11T01:43:00.000-07:00

Voice hearer, Jamal Ahmed commenting on the faliure of mental health services to provide appropriate support and how a hearing voices group helps...

Jamal Ahmed, 41, from West Yorkshire was diagnosed with schizophrenia five years ago but has never heard of the Nice guidance.

Mr Ahmed said: "I have been on an endless list of medications but my psychiatrist never discusses side effects and he doesn't like me asking questions. In his opinion, he's the doctor and so he knows best. What I think doesn't matter. He asks me the same set of questions and I tell him what he wants to hear. But I'd like him to sit down, listen to what I'm saying and come out of his box."

He added: "I found the Hearing Voices group from a poster, which is great because I get support from others in the same boat. Everyone in the group lies to their doctors because they are afraid what will happen if they are honest. There are no other choices."

Full article The Independent, 8th September 2008

Healing Voices

2008-09-11T01:32:00.000-07:00

Will Hall talking about the Freedom Center, his voice hearing expereinces and alternative mental health ....

"Since I was a child I've struggled with extreme emotions, voices and powerful out of body experiences. I remember falling to the ground once in third grade, writhing in agony because I believed something was grabbing my back. I saw cartoons projected on the ceiling, and my fear was sometimes so strong I fell mute. I often hid away, alone, overwhelmed and unable to describe what was going on.

At age 26, I hit a breaking point and wandered the streets of San Francisco all night hearing angry voices telling me to kill myself. I ended up on a locked psychiatric ward. For the next year, I was in and out of hospitals and homeless shelters.

My diagnosis was schizoaffective schizophrenia, and the treatment was powerful anti-psychotic medications. What the doctors had to offer didn't help me, however. I left the hospital with more problems than I had going in, and I had to cope with the trauma of restraints, seclusion, plus a stigmatizing label that offered little hope for the future.

With nowhere to turn, I started to search for an answer on my own. In 2000, some friends in the Northampton, Mass., area let me stay with them, and I got a job in a local convenience store. Then I worked in a bookstore. The daily routine of a job, getting away from the memories in San Francisco, the small town tempo--it all helped. Step by step, over these difficult years, I learned a different way of responding to my madness. "

Full story Forbes.com, 29th August 2008

Virginia Woolf: "I was fascinated by her hearing voices ..." New Dance By Lynne Taylor-corbett

2008-09-11T01:19:00.000-07:00

Not Afraid Of Virginia Woolf

Groundworks Premieres New Dance By Lynne Taylor-corbett
By Michael Gill

"I feel certain that I am going mad again," Virginia Woolf wrote in her oft-quoted suicide note to husband Leonard Woolf. "I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier 'til this terrible disease came."

Suffering from what scholars have posthumously diagnosed as bipolar disorder, Woolf put an end to her own misery by filling her pockets with rocks and walking into a river. The final hours of the great English novelist and essayist's life have long fascinated the acclaimed choreographer Lynne Taylor-Corbett, who is best known for work on Broadway shows like Chess and Swing, and movies including Footloose and My Blue Heaven. She spoke with Scene by phone from New York, where she was casting the dance company for a touring production of the Disney musical Tarzan.

"Virginia Woolf is, for some reason, an author that affected me when I was in my 20s," she says. "She's so much in our culture. I was fascinated by her hearing voices as her depression was coming on." Taylor-Corbett is in town this week for GroundWorks Dancetheater's premiere of her yet-to-be-named work, a fantasy based on the imagined final hours of the writer in the room of her own - a time during which she decided she couldn't go on living and drag her husband through her depression, but had the presence of mind and awareness of their mutual love to write such a cogent and heartfelt letter.

Full article, Clevelend Free Times, September, 2008

"She was suffering," the choreographer says, "but this woman was not insane."

Tracing The Roots Of 'Irish Madness'

2008-08-30T12:23:00.000-07:00

For more than five generations, Patrick Tracey's family has been plagued by what he calls "a perfect storm of schizophrenia." In his new book, Stalking Irish Madness, he traces his family lineage — and the roots of the disease — all the way back to Ireland.

.......... I'm here with my own hellish story of sorts, because I know of at least three ancestors who suffered — as two of my fifth-generation Irish American siblings do now — from schizophrenia, a savage psychosis for which there is no cure or effective treatment. Statistics reveal that one of every four people worldwide suffers from some type of mental illness — one in one hundred from schizophrenia, the most severe form, its victims typically tortured by voices and other hallucinations that give rise to bizarre and demented behavior.

NPR, USA, full story here

Family members claim Jorge has been hearing voices for the last 5 to 6 years.

2008-08-30T12:16:00.000-07:00

KSEE, CA, 18/08/2008

"... Banda's father says, without a doubt, his son should be punished for what he did, but asks that his mental state be considered before a decision is made.
Ignacio Banda: "When he was living here, a lot of the time, he would hear voices and the voices would tell him to do things."
Fernando Banda, Jorge’s brother: "It’s really scary because, like my dad said man, everybody knows, he wasn't right in the head."
Family members claim Jorge has been hearing voices for the last 5 to 6 years.
But some, including clinical psychologists, who have evaluated Banda, believe such voices may be caused by years of chronic meth use.
But his brother Fernando says the problems began much earlier.
Preston Phillips, KSEE 24 News: "You think its possible meth caused the voices?”
Fernando Banda: “No, even before, when he didn't know about that stuff, he started hearing things."

Full story here

Muslims believe the Quran is literally the word of God

2008-08-30T12:09:00.000-07:00

From The National, Abu Dhabi, 28/08/2008

Muslims believe the Quran is literally the word of God, and that the first word revealed to the Prophet when the messenger descended upon him was “read”.According to tradition, the Prophet had a habit of contemplating for hours by himself in a cave in Mecca. During one of these periods, the Prophet heard the voice of the archangel Gabriel, revealing to him the first word of the Quran.

The Prophet was frightened to hear the voice. He was also astounded at the irony of the command “read” given that he was illiterate. Many Muslims believe this revelation came after months of him seeing prophetic dreams and hearing voices.

See full article here

Toledo woman uses 'gift' of channeling

2008-07-14T17:21:00.000-07:00

Full article Toledo Blade (USA)

Article published Saturday, July 12, 2008

Dottie Zimmerman says an Italian saint speaks through her

Dottie Zimmerman is a 63-year-old mother of three, an award-winning religion teacher at a Toledo Catholic school, a former Ursuline nun, and a director of the Children's Theatre Workshop.

Dottie Zimmerman is a 63-year-old mother of three, an award-winning religion teacher at a Toledo Catholic school, a former Ursuline nun, and a director of the Children's Theatre Workshop.

For the last five years, Mrs. Zimmerman also says she has been "channeling" Padre Pio, letting the dead Italian Catholic saint mystically speak through her.

For the last five years, Mrs. Zimmerman also says she has been "channeling" Padre Pio, letting the dead Italian Catholic saint mystically speak through her.

It is a "gift," she said, and although she never asked for it she believes she must use it to help others, especially children. ...

She said she is hoping to use her gifts to encourage people, especially children, who may have similar talents but are afraid to use or even acknowledge them.

Mrs. Zimmerman just this week had her first book published, Why Am I Different?, by Outskirts Press. It is about a young girl who must cope with her gifts of seeing and hearing spirits.
"More and more kids are coming to me who are hearing voices or who are seeing spirits, some of them both, and lately I've asked him [Padre Pio] if this is an area that I'm being directed towards and he said, 'Absolutely. That's one of the reasons why you're here, to help these kids understand that it's a gift and it's not a fearful thing.'•"

Hearing voices of Reason, The Times, 14th July 2008

2008-07-14T10:54:00.000-07:00

Auditory hallucinations can be frightening but are not always a sign of psychosis. They may even be a joyful experience

Article by Paul Broks

Scientific surveys have revealed that 1 person in 50 admits hearing voices from time to time. Bereaved people are especially prone. A friend who recently lost his wife to cancer told me that she often spoke to him. He has no belief in the supernatural - the voice was testament to a relationship so long and loving that one mind had entwined with another.

Read full article here

Man died after 'hearing voices'

2008-07-01T12:27:00.000-07:00

A very sad but typical report of how isolated voice hearers can suffer

Full story The Star

28 June 2008

A SEVERELY-depressed Doncaster man committed suicide after hearing voices from a relative telling him to kill himself, an inquest heard.

Brian Wilson (Beach Boys) interview

2008-06-21T15:24:00.000-07:00

Extract from interview with Brian Wilson, voice hearer and musician. Note reference to abusive father ....

Brian Wilson (Beach Boys) interview

"Brian Wilson founded The Beach Boys in 1961 but, despite the group’s success, his life has been plagued by mental health problems.

21 June 2008

EDP24 News (UK)

.... Carl and Dennis are long gone; Carl died from cancer in 1998, Dennis drowned in an alcohol-related incident in 1983. Somehow Brian outlived them. That seemed unlikely for much of the 1960s and '70s. His gargantuan drug intake - LSD, marijuana, amphetamine and cocaine - shattered his mental equilibrium permanently, his weight ballooned, he was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, he began hearing voices in his head.

He is much recovered but in 2004 he confided to American TV host Larry King: “I can still hear things like 'I'm going to kill you', but I don't hear very many other kind of thoughts. Just usually negative thoughts…”The mental health issues dated to his childhood, however, and owed much to his tyrannical father Murry.

In his autobiography Brian wrote that “playing the piano… literally saved my ass. I recall playing one time while my dad flung Dennis against the wall… That was just one of many incidents when I didn't miss a note, supplying background music to the hell that often substituted for a family life”.

Be it the drugs or the upbringing, the result was a dysfunctional personality. Stories of his eccentricity are legion and have been repeated ad nauseam. His revival during this decade has been wondrous and unexpected. It is a far cry from the 1970s and '80s when he lived under the influence of the controlling Dr Eugene Landy, whose method of therapy involved restricting Brian's contact with his family and friends and demanding complete obedience. In short, he has suffered more than most for his talent. I wonder whether he might have preferred a happy life to a brilliant one. The 'genius' tag has attached itself to him for the past 40 years, I suspect rather like a millstone at times. So does he ever consider this to be a burden; how does the word 'genius' make him feel? “It makes me feel I'm very clever or smart.” And do you agree with them, Brian?“Yeah, I do. Yeah!”

Full interview here

Britain's child victims of the chemical cosh

2008-06-17T01:46:00.000-07:00

Independent on Sunday (UK)

Sunday, 15 June 2008

Powerful anti-psychotic drugs designed for adults are being used to treat children, including those with learning difficulties. Brian Brady and Nina Lakhani report

The number of powerful psychiatric drugs prescribed to England's children has risen by more than half in four years, government figures have revealed.

GPs in England are handing out prescriptions for anti-psychotic drugs for children as young as seven at the rate of 250 a day, according to figures obtained by The Independent on Sunday.

Latest data compiled for the NHS show that tranquillisers designed to treat serious conditions including schizophrenia in adults were prescribed to young people 57,000 times in 2003. But the total had risen to more than 90,000 by 2006 – a 59 per cent rise in three years. The figures do not include drugs dispensed in hospitals. Experts believe the increase is partly down to early detection and treatment of serious mental health problems in children, but there is also concern they are being used inappropriately to treat psychological and learning difficulties. Shortage of staff and resources are further factors.

The drugs, which are designed to treat symptoms such as visual hallucinations, hearing voices and delusional thoughts, have serious side effects including weight gain, tiredness, sexual dysfunction and lactation. The safety and effectiveness of these drugs, which were designed for adults, have not been fully tested on children.

'No one ever talked about side effects with me, not once'

Lucy Bennett, 19, from Exeter, lives with her seven-month-old son Harvey. For a year she lived in psychiatric hospitals with medication the only option.

"By the time I was 15 I had every problem you can imagine. I was into drugs, alcohol, boys, and had stopped going to school. After years of growing up with my mum's mental illness and alcohol problems, I was on a road to self-destruction. I finally told a psychiatrist in A&E I was hearing voices after which I was admitted to hospital straight away.

"I felt terrible. I was all over the place, so when the doctors and nurses told me the medication would make me feel better, I took them. In some ways I did feel a bit better. I was a complete zombie and sleeping all the time which meant I didn't care about the voices any more, but they were still there.

"Within days I had started leaking milk from my breast. It was awful. I swapped medication and within three months I had put on three stone. I was so depressed at being a size 16 I started making myself sick. I ended up with bulimia as well.

"As soon as I decided I didn't want to take the drugs I was sectioned and forcibly injected. I ended pretending the voices had gone just so I could get out. Drugs were the only option. I had a psychology session for an hour a week and a few family therapy sessions but that was it. No one ever talked about side effects with me, not once. I ended up having to get information from my mum and other patients.

"Three years later I am medication free and learning new ways to cope with my voices. I have a great community psychiatric nurse, who lets me keep some medication for emergencies, but I'm in control now. There is no way I could look after my son if I was still on the medication. I know they can help some people but they didn't help me. I should have been given the choice."

Full story here

You can comment on the story here

We're all to blame for staying mum on mental illness

2008-06-13T00:46:00.000-07:00

By ANDRE PICARD

From Canadian Newspaper the Globe and Mail, June 5, 2008

"There is something we need to cry out long and loud: Joshua Lall was mentally ill.
Before the murderous rampage that left two of his children, his wife and a tenant dead, the 34-year-old Calgary man reportedly was hearing voices and feared he was possessed by the devil.
Mr. Lall's family said he had told them he was having a "mental breakdown," and according to an e-mail written by his wife he had been stressed out and unable to sleep for a long period of time - all classic signs of severe untreated mental illness and the psychosis that can grip those with depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.

There are those who do not want to say Mr. Lall was mentally ill for fear of besmirching his memory. Apparently, there is one thing more shameful than being a mass murderer, and that is being crazy.

There are those who fear that openly discussing the role of mental illness in these killings will perpetuate negative stereotypes about those with mental illness.

Yet by tiptoeing around Mr. Lall's apparent sickness, by not daring to speak aloud the words "mentally ill," we are perpetuating the stigma that was likely a driving force in this tragedy.

Mr. Lall was sick. He was exhausted. He was hearing voices. He was probably frightened half to death....

See full article here

2008-06-10T01:31:00.000-07:00

Taken from a discussion about hearing voices on an Anti Meth site, see full discussion here.

............this is what "LIFE 101" says about it...

Inner Voices

What the inner voice says
Will not disappoint the hoping soul
SCHILLER
1797

It doesn't take much inner listening to know that "in there" there are many voices: speaking, singing, shouting, and whispering. At times, I'm sure I have an entire Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Some of the "voices" speak; others flash images. Some communicate by feelings, while others communicate through a sense of "knowing."

When I say "voices," I include all of these--and any forms of communication I failed to mention. These voices have information--all of it useful. Some you can use by acting on; some you can use by doing precisely the opposite. It's a matter of knowing whether or not a given voice is on your side.

How do you know?

Listen.

Listen might not be the best word. Perceive might be a better word, or look within, or be aware of your inner process. I'll use listen, because it goes along with the analogy of "voices," but know that when I say "listen" I also mean watch, sense, perceive, and be aware of what's going on inside. Start by listening and keeping track of which voice says what. You can assign them characters, if you like.

Here are four of my inner favorites:

The critic. I see this voice as a vulture. Pick, pick, pick, nag, nag, nag. Nothing anyone does is good enough. (Except occasionally when somebody else does something undeniably outstanding, then the vulture says, "Well, you'll never do anything that good." Doom and gloom fly with the vulture. It feeds on unworthiness, and its droppings are the doubts, fears, and judgments that keep us from moving toward our goals.

The praiser. The praiser I see as an eagle. It proudly tells us all the wonderful things we are, have, and do. It generously praises the being, accomplishments, and activities of others. It's the one that lets us know we are worthy no matter what, and that our worth does not need to be proven, earned, or defended. We are worthy just because we are. All that we are is fine just the way it is. It flies on the wings of grace and gratitude. It nurtures our very soul.

The dummy. The dummy is a turkey. It's the one who answers quickly and loudly, "I don't know," to almost any question. The turkey is the one that keeps us doing all those stupid things we do, and then say, "Darn! I knew better!" We may know better, but no one told the turkey. Turkeys do not fly. If you leave them out in the rain they will drown. They have nothing to be thankful for on Thanksgiving.

The grower. The grower is like an egg. An egg? Yes, as W. S. Gilbert said, "As innocent as a new-laid egg." That's one of the attributes of growth--each moment is new, fresh, and innocent. An egg also contains all the potential for future growth. As Hans Christian Andersen pointed out, "His own image was no longer the reflection of a clumsy, dirty, gray bird, ugly and offensive. He himself was a swan! Being born in a duck yard does not matter, if only you are hatched from a swan's egg." Our grower knows who we are and the kind of bird in the egg (HINT: It's no vulture). It has sufficient self-love to keep itself warm and cozy while gestating. It knows the hatching will take place at precisely the right moment. It is content and divinely patient until then.

As Robert Burns wrote of his egg, "The voice of Nature loudly cries, / And many a message from the skies, / That something in us never dies."

It's a good idea to listen to what the voices say, not to how they say it.

As Lord Byron reminds us, "The Devil hath not, / in all his quiver's choice, / An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice."

And Freud, a century later, wrote, "The voice of the intellect is a soft one, but it does not rest until it has gained a hearing. Ultimately, after endlessly repeated rebuffs, it succeeds. This is one of the few points in which one may be optimistic about the future of mankind, but in itself it signifies not a little."

If all these birds in our brains are too much for you, perhaps you could use the metaphor of tuning a radio, or changing channels on a television. Once you tune into your own network of wisdom, you'll have guidance that's sure, clear, and direct.

I thank you for your voices, thank you, Your most sweet voices.
SHAKESPEARE

It can be irritating to get a catchy song stuck in your head. Imagine if the music sounded so real that you were sure it was coming from a stereo

2008-06-09T00:03:00.000-07:00

Interview: Music of the hemispheres

NewScientist.com news service

23 May 2008

Ewen Callaway

It can be irritating to get a catchy song stuck in your head. Imagine if the music sounded so real that you were sure it was coming from a stereo, and the tune never went away.
This is what it's like to suffer from musical hallucinosis, a mysterious condition that usually strikes elderly people with poor hearing. Ramon Mocellin, a psychiatrist at Royal Melbourne Hospital in Australia who treats patients with the disorder, tells New Scientist about the condition.

Are people with the condition mentally ill?

Hallucinations, which simply put are perceptions without a stimulus, can be symptoms of mental illness. Auditory hallucinations, in particular hearing voices, are one of the diagnostic criteria of schizophrenia. It is, however, the nature of the hallucinations and the patient's understanding of them that point to the underlying problem.

In this group of patients, the experience of hearing music when there is no external source of music is often accompanied by some degree of understanding that these experiences are not "real", that they originate from their own mind. In schizophrenia, or other mental illnesses, hallucinations are experienced as real, in the external world.

Unfortunately, as most people would equate hearing or seeing things that are not there with mental illness, many people with these symptoms do not seek help because of the shame and stigma that continues to surround mental illness of any type.

Full article here

‘More real than reality’: a study of voice hearing

2008-06-05T14:43:00.000-07:00

I've just come across this recently published paper by INTERVOICE supporter, Lis-Bodil Karlsson from Sweden, see abstract below:

"Hearing voices can be considered as elusive or illusory hallucinations in the sense that they are perceptions that have no external reason or even that they are divorced from reality. The aim of this article is to describe how participants in different focus groups account for and understand their voice-hearing experiences. The study shows that voice hearing can be such an overwhelming experience that it can even be experienced as ‘more real than reality’. Voices are strong and powerful experiences that sometimes convey memories from the past or difficulties that the voice hearer would prefer to forget but in fact has had to confront. The voices also influence how the voice hearer sees his or her future. This study contributes to our knowledge of the world and language of voice hearers from the perspective of social work."

International Journal of Social Welfare Lis-Bodil Karlsson (2007)
‘More real than reality’: a study of voice hearing
doi:10.1111/j.1468-2397.2007.00524.x

I have heard voices for sixty years and nowadays teach people how to do it

2008-06-05T14:18:00.000-07:00

From Mindfields College Blog

Catherine Walker // Apr 24, 2008 at 9:15 pm

"I have heard voices for sixty years and nowadays teach people how to do it. There are many myths surrounding it and very little knowledge.

You will not hear voices because of a ‘curse,’ but because you have a special talent that you don’t understand or know how to control. Think of it like a phone that keeps ringing and you feel impelled to answer in case it’s important. When you take control of your life, you buy an answer machine and delete the junk calls. You only answer the phone when it’s fun.

It never caused me any problems, but it did trouble others who thought I had some sort of infliction. I decided when I was twelve that they were the ones with the problem, not me.

These days people understand it better and for the last few years, I have made a part time business from hearing voices. There are those who want me to tell them what I hear when I talk to their pets, so I work as an animal communicator and even have some clients, who let me help them on a regular basis with their horse or their dog or cat.

If you hear voices, remember that you can choose whom you talk to and you can choose whom you listen to as well. With appropriate help, you can switch them on and off when it suits you to.

Hearing voices should be a pleasure and it should improve the quality of your life. If that isn’t the case, tell the voice in your head that it is time it found something useful to do and find someone that you feel comfortable with to have a chat with instead."

See Catherine's TalkingHorse website here

Anthony Hopkins: 'Golden Voice Saved Me From Alcoholism'

2008-06-05T14:06:00.000-07:00

From: Starplus.com

Former alcoholic Anthony Hopkins stopped drinking after he was rescued by a 'golden voice' from his subconscious. The Oscar-winning actor admits quitting alcohol in 1975 was a lucky escape.

He says, "For me, giving it (alcohol) up was finding the airlock, the escape hatch. It all happened one Monday morning in 1975. It was as if a voice said, 'Ready! Go!' It was that clear, the voice of gold. The best part of myself, my subconscious, came to rescue me. I don't know how. I had no religious connection or a connection to what I thought was God."

"And then that Monday: Boom. And it was over. It was like a great pilot light was lit. No explanation except, I guess, I was open, willing and ready. When I look back I think I was so lucky to get out of that one. It was all about fear and horror. Definitely the horror - going down the plughole."

Read more about Anthony Hopkins and other well known people's voice experiences here

The power of the blog: INTERVOICE website gets lots more hits this week

2008-06-04T23:53:00.000-07:00

Normally our site gets an average of 100 new visitors daily.

Yesterday and today has proven to be exceptional.

Following descriptions of the INTERVOICE site and links to it being put up on a blog page known as Presurfer and then on a Canadian blog called Web Junkie and then two German news sites Speigel and Ehrensenf we got over 900 unique visitor hits in one day.

A record!

The only time we came close to that was on the 21st April following the broadcast of The Doctor Who Hear Voices on UK TV station Channel 4 when we got almost 400 hits.

Thanks for getting the information out there folks, even if you think it is all a bit weird.

Mark Stachiew, the Web Junkie said:

When people hear voices in their minds, psychiatrists usually prescribe medications for them to make the voices go away, but not everyone who experiences auditory hallucinations thinks they are a bad thing. In fact, there's a website where the people who hear voices in their head can gather to trade their stories. It sure beats where they usually gather to meet in person which is the asylum.

So he really misses the point.

Whilst Presurfer hosted by Gerard Vlemmings from the Netherlands, describes itself as a daily Dose of Diversion. A weblog about the weird, unusual, funny, strange and informative sites that can be found on the Internet.

Well read the site and make up your own minds!