If you’re looking for support around the experience of hearing voices, here are all the resources and links I’m aware of. Firstly a few from this blog:
- About Voice Hearing
- My Personal Experience of Voice Hearing
- What’s it like to have Hallucinations?
- Psychosis
- Should We be Afraid of Psychotic People?
- Is Schizophrenia having ‘Multiple Personalities’?
- The Voices Vic Conference 1
- The Voices Vic Conference 2
- The Voices Vic Conference 3
- What does Recovery Mean?
- Hearing Voices Resources (local)
The International Voice Hearing Community has a website at www.intervoiceonline.org and a facebook group for anyone to join to share and discuss experiences at www.facebook.com/groups/intervoice This is open to people who hear voices as well as friends and family looking for information and support.
For children and young people who hear voices, Voice Collective is UK based and found at www.voicecollective.co.uk they have a number of free resources including this online booklet: For Parents Carers and Family Members of Young People who Hear Voices or See Visions.
Here’s a list of Australian based organisations and groups:
- Hearing Voices Network Australia www.hvna.net.au
- Hearing Voices Network NSW www.hvnnsw.org.au
- Voices Vic hwww.prahranmission.org.au/hearing_voices
Here in South Australia, we have currently one group meeting every week, called Sound Minds. Details on the Mental Illness Fellowship of SA website here: www.mifa.org.au/voice-hearers-group This is run by Ben and Anna, you can ask to speak with them on (08) 8378 4100. If you experience your voices as parts, there’s a group called Bridges running weekly you may wish to contact. That’s run through the Dissociative Initiative who can be found here: dissociativeinitiative.wordpress.com. There’s also a number of books on voice hearing in the DI library which you can borrow free if you live in SA.
There are many other Voice Hearing Activists who themselves hear or have heard voices and now work in Mental Health sharing their experiences and resources, a couple are listed here:
- Rufus May rufusmay.com
- Jaqui Dillon www.jacquidillon.org
- Ron Coleman www.roncolemanvoices.co.uk
- Eleanor Longden www.hearing-voices.org/tag/eleanor-longden
If you’re in a crisis situation, please reach out for help. In Australia you can call 000 for a life threatening situation, or ACIS on 13 14 65 for mental health crisis, or to speak with someone urgently Lifeline www.lifeline.org.au are available on 13 11 14. These are all available 24/7 and although they’re not specific for voice hearing if you or someone else is in danger they are the fastest support available. If you’re struggling to get support from ACIS, I would suggest reading
If you’re still struggling to find something local or you’d like to talk with me about your situation, you’re welcome to send me an email to sarah@di.org.au, but please be aware I’m extremely busy and may take a week or more to get back to you. Best wishes and take care x
Sarah K Reece 