Dr. Sandra Escher has been involved in the Hearing Voices Movement from the very beginning. She arranged for the appearance of Patsy Hage and Marius Romme on the Dutch TV talk show (the first time a serious effort was made to reach out to voice hearers not in contact with psychiatry and to find out about their expereinces). Sandra also worked together with Patsy Hage in deciding what she would say about hearing voices. Following the programme she worked with Patsy and Marius in determining the questions for the questionnaire that was sent to people who responded to the request made on the TV programme.

Sandra organised the first voice hearer congress in Utrecht in Holland at the school of journalism where she had been a student. Because people were afraid to talk about their experience, people were promised that the press would not be present. So, why hold the conference here? If you want to carry out qa successful burglary, you go to the house next to the police station. If you do not want media coverage, it ise best to organise the congress in their own "house"; the school of journalism.

In preparing this congress, Sandra, worked with the speakers in developing their life stories to ensure that they were able to say what they wanted in a public setting. She then wrote up most of the interviews in all the subsequent six studies carried out be the dutch team - with over three hundred voice hearers. Sandras role was essential, because of her journalist training and her experience and understanding of thee principles of interviewing - which is getting a clear picture of what a person has experienced or endured. Whilst psychiatric professionals mostly try to find confirmation of their own theories while interviewing, Sandra had an open mind. This was essential because the research was focussed on the voice hearing experience and not on any theory. By doing this she discovered that the acceptance of this experience by others was an essential element in the recovery from the distress caused by the voices. Over these years Sandra and Marius , discussed their encounters with voice hearers who often stayed at their house. These discussions were were essential to keep listening and understanding them and not to fall into the trap of relying on preconceived theoies.

For the last 20 years she has organised the hearing voices congresses in Holland, which are held every two year, as well as the four congresses she organised for INTERVOICE in Maastricht. She also has taekn responsibility for the P.R. for the voice hearing research studies.

In 1996 she started her own research with children hearing voices. A follow up study over three years interviewing, (with one colleque, she trained) 80 children, on four seperate occasions.

From this study she published enough articles to form the basis of her Ph.D in 2005 she got in 2005 with Prof, Jim van Os as her promotor. Before that she had finished her M.phil on this same study. guided by Prof, Mervin Morris at the university of Central England in Birmingham.

Looking back one can say about Sandra as Ron Coleman did in his book "Recovery an alien concept: ‘Sandra Escher is without doubt the person who made sure that ordinary people could understand the maps - from which to navigate - that were being made. Her ability to put across the message in language that is accessible to every one has meant that their work has not remained in the world of academia but has been used by voice hearer sfrom the very beginning. Sandra Escher has played a very important part in my recovery”. And in the recovery of many others, the children from her research as well as many adults who trusted her rightly and found hope and support with her to realise their well deserved recoveries.








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