Acceptance in the Hearing Voices Movement: how might this be relevant for art therapy service-users?

ABSTRACT

This paper considers what is shared by voice-hearers in the Hearing Voices Movement (HVM) and by service-users in art therapy. Both highlight what they see as the value of acceptance, peer-support, and clear collaborative communication. The paper considers how research and literature informed by lived-experience in the HVM and, UK art therapy might strengthen practice.

Life-stories by voice-hearers, included in the HVM literature, explain what has helped them and what is meant by acceptance within the movement. For those voice-hearers with a psychosis-related diagnosis, joining HVM could mean they find hope, even though the diagnosis means that they may face deep prejudice and some of their unusual experiences are frightening.

The paper also looks at what art therapy clients voice as helpful: the support found in group work; art-making; and honest, collaborative styles of communication overlaps with much that is described and explored in the work of HVM.

Although much smaller in scope, feedback given by art therapists to a professional regional-group provides additional indications that the profession is responsive to service-user perspectives, collaborative work, and to HVM.

Plain-language summary

This paper considers the Hearing Voices Movement in relation to adult mental health. Often people who hear voices receive a psychiatric diagnosis for which the primary treatment is medication. These diagnoses are known as ‘psychosis-related’. In the psychiatric system, voice-hearers are not usually encouraged to speak about their unusual experiences. In the Hearing Voices Movement, those who hear voices are encouraged to speak about their voices and other unusual experiences and to find ways of coping with them.

This paper looks at the literature of the Hearing Voices Movement to explore what ‘accepting voices’ means and how this may be relevant for art therapy clients. People who hear voices, family members, friends, health professionals, and social workers make up the movement and, they are all asked to work alongside one another in the interests of authentic collaboration aimed at improving the lives of voice-hearers.

The paper also looks at what is said in life-stories by voice-hearers about the value of acceptance, peer-support, and clear collaborative communication. Even though some people with a psychosis-related diagnosis are afraid of their experiences and face damaging prejudice, joining the Hearing Voices Movement can mean they find hope. Also, the art-making, group work, and honest, collaborative styles of communication valued by art therapy clients overlaps with much of the work and research of the Hearing Voices Movement.

Being respectfully accepted as a voice-hearer seems to help people feel that they can work towards a sense of control, self-direction, and self-acceptance in their lives.

Feedback given by art therapists to a professional regional-group offers indications that the art therapy profession is responsive to service-user perspectives, collaborative work, and to the Hearing Voices Movement.

KEYWORDS:

• Accepting voices
• art therapy
• collaborative mental health practice
• Hearing Voices Movement (HVM)
• lived-experience
• psychosis
• voice-hearers

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Chris Wood (PhD) works as an art therapist in the NHS. She also works as a lecturer with the Art Therapy Northern Training Programme based in Sheffield. Separately she is a research fellow with the University of Sheffield, and here she works with Arts Therapies PhD students. She feels fortunate to combine work in education and therapy and is inspired by the life stories of service-users, students, and people working in mental health services.