ABSTRACT
During the 1980s, the pioneers of the Hearing Voices Movement, including the Dutch social psychiatrist Marius Romme, researcher Dr. Sandra Escher, and voice hearer Patsy Page, set out to redefine the phenomenon of hearing voices. In response, the author present how radical empathy allows for the “thin place,” which serves as the theoretical basis for the way he conduct group therapy in the Hearing Voices Group that the author run from the “Mentally Ill and Chemically Addicted” unit at a local hospital. Group therapy is a protected space where thoughts, emotions, ideas, and experiences can be safely uttered and understood in a subliminal/subconscious manner by all those witnessing and absorbing. The clinician’s central focus is to assist the pained person to meet in the thin place, where radical empathy is most possible. It is when the holistic ancient knowledge of integration converges to form wisdom and unity. It is where healing becomes possible. This is radical empathy.
