In the article “Embracing All Our Selves”, we speak of the Psychology of Selves, the theoretical framework for our work. We discuss the development and the importance of the “selves” which we view as the smallest units or the building blocks of the psyche.
While auditory hallucinations are considered a core psychotic symptom, central to the diagnosis of schizophrenia, it has long been recognized that persons who are not psychotic may also hear voices. There is an entrenched clinical belief that distinctions can be made between these groups, typically on the basis of the perceived location or the ‘third-person’ perspective of the voices.
The format of this 3-day workshop for voice hearers and professionals is originally developed by Romme and Escher, well known Dutch researchers and professional psychiatry activists who gave the hearing voices movement an enormous impuls. I participated with them in several workshops and started to organise it independently and added my own accents.
In Maastricht, the Netherlands, over the past twenty years psychiatrist Marius Romme and researcher Sandra Escher have developed a new approach to hearing voices, which we will call the ‘Maastricht’ approach, that emphasises accepting and making sense of voices[1]. This approach has become progressively more influential, in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere, and has led to voice hearers organising themselves into networks, empowering themselves and working towards recovery in their own ways.