On 11 September 2019, over two hundred people attended our public symposium on ‘Hearing Voices: What do we need to know?’ at The Assembly Rooms in Newcastle upon Tyne. The event marked the launch of our new website, Understanding Voices, and brought voice-hearers and their allies together with academics, activists and clinicians in order to explore future directions in voice-hearing research, advocacy, policy and clinical practice.
If you couldn’t join us at the event, you can catch some of the talks and presentations below.
Welcome and introduction
‘Welcome‘ – Angela Woods (Co-director, Hearing the Voice)
Three digital stories
‘Am I dangerous?’ – Nikki Mattocks
‘My name is Stephen’ – Stephen Groves
‘Hearing voices isn’t all bad’ – Wenda Parsons
Launch of Understanding Voices
‘The Big Picture’ – Charles Fernyhough (PI, Hearing the Voice)
‘The Process’ – Victoria Patton (Hearing the Voice)
‘The Promise’ – Rai Waddingham (Chair, Hearing Voices Network England)
The Future of Hearing Voices
‘The more we look the less we see?’ – Akiko Hart (Mind in Camden)
‘Psychosis risk and the social environment’ – James Kirkbride (University College London)
‘Finding new ways to listen to and learn from young people’ – Sarah Parry (Manchester Metropolitan University)
‘Voices in clinical and non-clinical populations’ – Emmmanuelle Peters (King’s College London)
‘Context matters: service user leadership and perspectives within digital voice-hearing research’ – Stephanie Allan (University of Glasgow)
‘A world without voices’ – Elisabeth Svanholmer (Voice-hearer and mental health trainer)
‘Making space for madness’ – Jason Poole (University of East London)
‘Culture and hearing voices: What do we need to know?’ – Dawn Edge (University of Manchester)
‘Augmenting the technology of talking: the digital future of help for hearing voices’ – Neil Thomas (Swinburne University of Technology)
‘Hearing voices: what’s the tipping point?’ – Ben Alderson-Day (Durham University)
‘I think we got off on the wrong foot. Can we start over?’ – Rachel Waddingham (Voice-hearer, mental health trainer, researcher and Chair of the Hearing Voices Network England)
More information about the speakers and their affiliations can be found at in the event programme, which you can download here. Please feel free to share these resources on social media using the hashtag #UnderstandingVoices.