UEL throws spotlight on 'hearing voices'
Article updated 12 January 2007
Source: Newham Recorder, UK, 12 January 2008
The fascinating experiences of people who hear voices will come under the spotlight at a special one-day conference to be held at the University of East London (UEL) Stratford campus on Tuesday January 29.
The conference is a collaboration between UEL's School of Psychology and the Hearing Voices Network, a national charity that offers information, support and understanding to people who hear voices and those who support them.
A wide range of speakers, including academic psychologists, mental health professionals, and voice hearers themselves, will debate the causes and effects of the experience and attempt to develop constructive ways in which to manage and understand it outside of psychiatric services.
Dr David Harper, Reader in Clinical Psychology at UEL, will be among the conference's key speakers. Dr Harper said: "Mainstream psychiatry understands the experience of hearing voices as a "symptom" of "severe mental illness", and provides little more than drug treatment in response.
"There is now a growing body of research that challenges this traditional account and shows that there are many explanations for hearing voices. As the limitations of a solely medical approach to the experience become better known, it is crucial that voice hearers are offered a forum in which to make sense of their experiences outside of psychiatry."
The Hearing Voices Network conference will take place at UEL's Duncan House campus in Stratford High Street. For further details, go hereor contact Professor Mark Rapley on 020 8223 6392 or m.rapley@uel.ac.uk.