The Womens Hearing Voices Group in Manchester is really happy to share this event we are organising.

Online Talk with Eleanor Longden

The Talking with Voices Trial

Thursday April 10th 4pm – 5.30pm on Zoom

Eleanor Longden will talk about the Talking with Voices trial which is being carried out by the Psychosis Research Unit (PRU) in Manchester and is promoting a normalising approach to understanding voice hearing.

The online event will consist of a presentation of the study followed by a Q and A

Please book your place by emailing womenshvgmanchester@gmail.com

Talking With Voices (TwV) is a new form of talking therapy that comes from the work of the International Hearing Voices Movement. It is based on the idea that what voices say may reflect real-life conflicts and difficulties; so, for example, a person who had a time in their life when they felt very afraid may later hear voices which are angry and threatening. In this way, the voices can be understood as drawing attention to problems that may have happened in the past or be reoccurring in the present. 

TwV involves a therapist speaking with the voice by asking it questions. The voice hearer then listens to the responses and repeats them out loud to the therapist. Over time, the therapist learns more about the voice(s) in order to support the voice(s) and voice hearer to develop a more peaceful relationship. In addition, the therapist and voice hearer work together to try and understand how the voices may relate to particular problems in the person’s life. In the long-term, it is hoped that this process can be helpful for learning new ways to cope with the voices and become less distressed by them. 

Dr Eleanor Longden is a Postdoctoral Service User Research Manager at the Psychosis Research Unit at Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust (GMMH), honorary research fellow at the University of Manchester, and co-director of GMMH’s Complex Trauma and Resilience Research Unit. Throughout her career, she has drawn on her own experiences of recovery from trauma and psychosis to promote person-centred approaches to mental health problems that emphasise the lived experience and expertise of service-users. Her research focusses on the relationship between dissociation, trauma, and voice-hearing, and she has lectured and published internationally on these issues.

See more: https://psychosisresearch.com/portfolio-item/talking-with-voices-2/