Raising Our Voices – Speaking Our Truths: World Hearing Voices Congress (two days) and INTERVOICE meeting (one day) 2nd – 4th November, 2010, Sherwood Forest Center Parcs, Nottinghamshire, England
Hosted by Hearing Voices England & INTERVOICE and sponsored by Asylum Associates, this was the largest and most significant event ever held in the 23 year history of the hearing voices movement.
Over 400 people attended this years two day Congress and 170 to the one day INTERVOICE meeting. Delegates came from around the world including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, USA and from all over the UK. Many voice hearers were present, alongside psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, academics, social workers and family members.
Our meetings are very special in that they involve professionals and voice hearers as equal partners as presenters and participants (you need to have to been there to fully appreciate it).
The theme this year was the exploration of personal truths and spreading the message to the wider world.
Topics were diverse but focusede on innovatory and deevloping ideas and practice. We sought to stretch the agenda and push the boundaries. It was held at a Center Parc to ensure a peaceful and enjoyable environment and experience for everyone taking part.
The Congress saw the launch of the new INTERVOICE website, the introduction of a formal membership scheme and the book launch of the English language edition of Children Hearing Voices: What you need to know and what you can do by Sandra Escher and Marius Romme.
Issues discussed included:
- On the Road to Recovery
- Child Sexual Abuse: Making Sense and Moving On
- Service Users Training Psychiatrists
- What does voice hearing have to do with me? What is my personal reference as expert by profession who doesn’t have the experience him/herself?
- Walking the Shamans Path
- How Art has helped me
- Experienced Focused Counselling:
- Meds Free Life/Wife
- Person Centred Therapy and Hearing Voices
- Piloting a Hearing Voices Group in a High Security Psychiatric Setting:
- Re-examining the evidence base for Hearing Voices Groups – what works, what we think works,and what we need to find out more about.
- How voice hearers can develop their own internal voice and use it to go into a dialogue with their voices
- Young People
We believe the Congress gave added impetus to our call for a change in the way society and mental health services regard voices. No longer as something to be eradicated, but as an aspect of our humanity that can be valued and understood.
I would like to have the power points from all the keynotes. Is this possible? – Berta
if he does drugs they seem to get mad, Chuck feels it is because he fihtgs back more or ignores them more then, they have less control. I know both of my friends very well, so I have my theories of why all of a sudden they have voices. You see we are all in our early 50 s. Chuck has nothing from his child hood to indicate voices, or experiences. Now Danny, my other friend, with God and his fallen Angels, he has a bit of history involving UFO sightings, being a non believer of God his entire life, until he got clean and sober got married, had a child, church every Sunday, and when ever. He started hearing fallen Angels when his marriage, and life started falling apart. I hadn’t seen him for about 7 years when he stopped by one day, this was about 6 years ago. He was talking about God, gave me a bible. The next time he came over he broke down told me about his voices, and God being mentally and physical with him, letting his Fallen Angels molest him and all sorts of bad things. This man whom his whole life growing up an Atheist, could now recite every bit of any Bible. I feel that he has disappointment within himself, then also I am sure he is angry with God for not being there when he called on him with his arrests, divorce, and now his daughter won’t talk with him. I think he is fighting with his Atheist self and his knowledge of the Bible self with it’s many contradictions, this is where I feel the voices come in, for Danny that is. For Chuck, it very well could be Government, The Haarp Project.com talks about a lot of things, one of them is Mind Control, and the micro chipping of people. They have been doing this since 1948. but, I don’t see Chuck being that much of an issue to have been chipped, so again it might just be his conscience also. Any way, my friend Danny wanted me to contact the Innervoice, and share a little of his story, along with Chuck’s. I read Jay’s story and it was very familiar to me, concerning my friend Chuck. So, just so you know, you are not alone, there are people all over the world with experiences just like yours. Hope you all can find silence again with in your selves one day. Peace.