This magnificent book brings together in one volume all the
theory, learning, research, wisdom from practice and practical examples of the
revolutionary work of Marius Romme, Sandra Escher and Dirk Corstens into
supporting people who hear voices. Challenging the fundamental premises of
mainstream psychiatry, Romme, Escher and Corstens have pioneered their approach
of 'making sense of voices' since the 1980s. They were the first to listen to
and talk with the voices of voice hearers, and to realise that the identities
of the voices and what they had to say held huge meaning in the contexts of
voice hearers' lives. These were not hallucinations or delusions but phenomena
whose words offered clues both to the person's history (frequently of childhood
abuse and severe trauma) and how they might be helped to learn to live with
their voices and recover. For far too many people, the blunt interventions
preferred by mainstream psychiatry - incarceration in psychiatric institutions,
loss of independence and long-term reliance on welfare and heavy doses of
neuroleptics and tranquillisers - had in fact robbed them of the mental and
emotional capacity and external resources they needed to help themselves.

This book explains the history and reports the wealth of research
conducted to support this way of working, together with detailed practical
advice on how to use the approach with voice hearers. Drawing on the accounts
of numerous voice hearers, in addition to the clinical research, this book is
the go-to resource for those who hear voices, the people who love and support
them and those whose work brings them into contact with voice hearers and who
wish to help them find ways to negotiate a positive relationship with their
sometimes unwelcome and vociferous companions.

Unlike
medication, this approach works, has no distressing side effects, and can
enable the person to co-exist with the voices that they find helpful, while
others that could be hostile and even seemingly evil, can be managed or even go
away. Once heeded, their messages, which could often be attempts to protect the
voice hearer, were no longer needed.