A preliminary evaluation (2004)
Sara Meddings, Linda Walley, Tracy Collins, Fay Tullett, Bruce McEwan and Kate Owen, Sussex Partnership Trust
The study found that after attending the hearing voices group,members’ hospital bed use decreased and there was a trend for less formal admissions. People used far more coping strategies and were able to talk to far more people about their voices after attending the group. Learning coping strategies was something people valued about the group and one of the common topics was to explore and experiment with different coping strategies. After attending the group, self esteem increased. User empowerment also increased supporting anecdotal reports of hearing voices groups which had not been formally examined elsewhere. Feeling more empowered was one of the aims of the group particularly valued by users and may be associated, not only with the voices themselves, but also with other aspects of recovery and getting better. People’s relationships with the voices were mostly improved. They heard the voices less frequently, the voices were perceived as less powerful (omnipotent) relative to them, people felt much better able to cope with their voices, and there were trends towards people feeling less controlled by their voices and feeling less alone. Perhaps most importantly, the evaluation shows that people improved in relation to what they had identified as their own goals for the group, their personal constructs.
Version of research study published as “The voices don’t like it…”, in Mental health Today, (September 2006)
Abstract
Hearing voices groups have been shown to benefit members by reducing the power and influence of the voices and providing an important source of peer and social support. Sara Meddings and colleagues report the findings of the first ever study to use standardised measures to gauge the impact of attendance at a hearing voices group. Their study quantified statistically significant improvements in participants’ ability to live with and even control their voices, as well as collecting evidence of the qualitative benefits of knowing that others are also struggling with what can be a very isolating and alienating phenomenon.
It’s been a bit difficult to reach voice-hearers willing to try a hearing voices group. I would be grateful for suggestions on how to appeal to people to participate and for them to try it more than one time.
I am encouraged by and interested to read the entire study on the effectiveness of hearing voices groups. I wasn’t able to find more than the summary and abstract. Please direct me to such a site.
Thank you very much,
Berta Britz, from Pennsylvania, USA
Hi guys,
I am a peer support worker with lived experience of hearing voices. I live in Melbourne Austrlia. I am looking for info and guiding principles (start up pack)for starting up a voices group within the community the my role services.
I clicked on the read full article pdf link A Prelimanary Evaluation 2004, however it redirected me to the same page with the same link to the pdf A Prelimanary Evaluation 2004.
If you could reccomend any material that would be useful for me it would be much appreciated.
I will continue to search around on your wonderful looking site though.
Thank you
Jason Williams