ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors discuss voice hearing against a broad background context of sociopolitics, medicalisation, healthcare policy, and mainstream approaches that frame and “treat” voice hearing as a symptom of mental illness. The authors challenge these conventional approaches and introduce readers to three of the key areas concerning voice hearing that inform the guided support later in this book. The first is an extension of the concept of relationships, introduced in Chapter 1 and explored theoretically here. The second is the seminal work of Marius Romme and Sandra Escher, and their influence on the development of the Hearing Voices Movement. The final area is the Talking with Voices approach, which is rooted in the work of the Hearing Voices Movement and influenced by the Voice Dialogue method by Stone and Stone. The approach taken in this book by the authors is informed by the work of Romme and Escher but extends voice hearing relationships beyond a person and their voices to include other people. This chapter completes Part 1 of this book; in Part 2, the authors explain how the concept of relationships has been extended through the development of the Tripartite Relationship Theory.
