Hearing Voices Movement

The Hearing Voices Movement is the name used by organizations and individuals advocating the "hearing voices approach", an alternative way of understanding the experience of those people who "hear voices". In the medical professional literature, ‘voices’ are most often referred to as auditory hallucinations or ‘verbal’ hallucinations. The movement uses the term ‘voices’, which it feels is a more accurate and 'user-friendly' term.

The movement was instigated by Marius Romme, Sandra Escher and Patsy Hage in 1987. It challenges the notion that to hear voices is necessarily a characteristic of mental illness. Instead it regards hearing voices as a meaningful and understandable, although unusual, human variation. It therefore rejects the stigma and pathologisation of hearing voices and advocates human rights, social justice and support for people who hear voices that is empowering and recovery focused. The movement thus challenges the medical model of mental illness, specifically the validity of the schizophrenia construct.

The international Hearing Voices Movement is a prominent mental health service-user/survivor movement that promotes the needs and perspectives of experts by experience in the phenomenon of hearing voices (auditory verbal hallucinations). The main tenet of the Hearing Voices Movement is the notion that hearing voices is a meaningful human experience.

The Hearing Voices Movement regards itself and is regarded by others as being a post-psychiatric organisation. It positions itself outside of the mental health world in recognition that voices are an aspect of human difference, rather than a mental health problem. One of the main issues of concern for the Hearing Voices Movement is empowerment and human rights as outlined in its Melbourne Hearing Voices Declaration 2013 and Thessaloniki Declaration 2014.

The Hearing Voices Movement also seeks holistic health solutions to problematic and overwhelming voices that cause mental distress. Based on their research, the movement espouses that many people successfully live with their voices. In themselves voices are not seen as the problem. Rather it is the relationship the person has with their voices that is regarded as the main issue. Research indicates that mindfulness-based interventions can be beneficial for people distressed by hearing voices.

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