How refreshing to read on SHINE’S website that the Irish Times and the Irish Independent were credited with destigmatising mental health and producing positive coverage of suicide-related issues at the Headline Annual Media Awards.
A Hearing Voices Workshop is taking place in March. The Hearing Voices workshop was developed and will be facilitated by Shine and Hearing Voices Ireland.
It was decided to hold one day workshops to provide voice hearers and professionals who work with them, information on voice hearing. The aim is to demystify the voice hearing experience and provide information on how voice hearers may support themselves and how those around them can best help them too.
Factual research information will be delivered throughout the course as well as recognizing the expertise of the person who has lived this experience, using their personal stories. Each member will be given a Hearing Voices Research Manual at the end of the course.
- The idea is to reduce the fear and stigma surrounding the voice hearing experience.
- Teach and share some self-help skills that voice hearers find useful.
- Empathize more deeply with the challenges voice hearers face.
- Create and hold a space for a voice hearer in which they can explore their experiences and find their own solutions.
While my son was ill with paranoid schizophrenia, we realized that he was hearing voices but he never shared his experiences with us. It was difficult for him to hold a regular conversation as the voices did not let up which was most confusing. He looked at us strangely as if we were responsible for voices in his head and once he said we ‘planted’ things to upset him. He also blamed us for ‘planting’ microphones in our house – then we realized that he connected them with the voices. If only I had known then what I know now, things could have been rather different.
