A simple circle of chairs & group diaglogue about voice-hearing and building up the HVN community in NYC. All welcome.
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Voice-Hearers Needed for Consultation & Collaboration
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Free Creative Arts Therapy Group for Voice-Hearers
Starting August 1st, we will be offering a free creative arts therapy workshop to individuals hearing voices, seeing visions, and having other experiences often referred to as “psychosis”.
THEY HEARD VOICES.
Co-sponsored by ISPS-US and Hearing Voices NYC:
THEY HEARD VOICES is documentary film exploring the Hearing Voices Movement, chronic psychosis and the schizophrenia label. The film is a series of wide-ranging interviews with voice hearers, medical historians, anthropologists and psychiatrists from Britain and America, presenting different people’s views.
Panel with audience Q & A will follow featuring members of ISPS-US & Hearing Voices NYC:
Matt Estrada, Tami Gatta, & Peri Zarella
TRAILER: https://vimeo.com/185557072
In celebration of Worldwide Creative Maladjustment Week
(July 7-14)
When: July 13th 2017
Where: Jefferson Market Library 425 Ave of the Americas (6th ave & 10th Street)
Cost: FREE
ISPS is international organization dedicated to development and promotion of social and psychological approaches to experiences that get called “psychosis”.
ISPS-US is the North American Chapter of ISPS and is active organizing events in North America, members include professionals of all stripes including: psychologists, psychiatrists, nurses, social workers, OTs, therapist and a whole bunch of others; as well as experts by experience, family members and carers – everyone. You can join too.
Membership of the ISPS-US automatically includes membership to ISPS international, so you get the best of both.
ISPS-US holds annual conferences , this year’s conference is in Portland, October 2017. ISPS hold international conferences biannually – next one is in Liverpool.
BBC Program “Why Did I Go Mad?”
If you haven’t had a chance to watch it yet, check out “Why Did I Go Mad?” a BBC program that looks at voice-hearing from a multitude of perspectives. The program features Rai Waddingham, Jacqui Dillon, Eleanor Longden, & David Strange .
Thank you, Jacqui!

A huge thanks to Jacqui Dillon for coming to speak to our community yesterday at Jefferson Market Library. Over 50 people attended the full-day workshop which focused on the history, ethos, and group format of the Hearing Voices Movement.
Jacqui mentioned some important resources during her talk, including:
- Eleanor Longden’s TED talk : Longden tells the moving tale of her years-long journey back to mental health, and makes the case that it was through learning to listen to her voices that she was able to survive.
- Tanya Luhrmann’s article on how culture influences the voice-hearing experience. Including the differences across the US, Indian & Africa
- Living With Voices: 50 Stories of Recovery : A book she helped co-edit which tells the stories of many people’s experiences with voices
- The Mysterious Skin : A Gregg Araki movie. Plot: Brian Lackey is determined to discover what happened during an amnesia blackout when he was eight years old, and then later woke with a bloody nose. He believes he was abducted by aliens, and N. McCormick, a fellow player on Brian’s childhood baseball team, may be the key as to exactly what happened that night. As Brian searches for the truth and tries to track him down, Neil McCormick takes up hustling and moves to New York, in attempts to forget childhood memories that haunt him. Together, the two of them uncover the terrible truth of the scars they share.
- The 2017 Hearing Voices World Congress Website: Where you can register for the upcoming international conference happening this year in Boston! August 16-18
- The Hearing Voices USA Charter: “Above all else, what defines a group as an HVN-USA Member is whether or not they operate in a way that is consistent with HVN values and approach. This Charter, adapted from the hard work and careful thought of many individuals connected with HVN England, identifies the qualities that define both affiliated and full group membership within HVN-USA. Only groups that clearly state that they follow the terms of this Charter will be listed on this site or considered to be HVN-USA members.”
- The Self Reflection Tool used for people to establish their readiness to facilitate or co-facilitate a Hearing Voices group. This can be used when formal training is not available.
Our follow-up event is happening soon:
Schreber Live! A Celebration of Memoirs of My Nervous Illness
“In what circumstances can a person considered insane be detained in an Asylum against his declared will?”
-Daniel Paul Schreber, Memoirs of My Nervous Illness
This past weekend, Hearing Voices New York City, along with the International Society for the Psychological & Social Approaches to Psychosis and Das Unbehagen, staged an event called “Schreber Live!” which celebrated Daniel Paul Schreber’s first person account of “madness”, Memoirs of My Nervous Illness. The event took place at the Jefferson Market Library and featured lectures, performances, visual art, poetry, and dance. One of the main features of the event was people scattered through-out the building, reading passages from the text. The purpose of the event was stated during the introduction:
“Schreber’s book–which is at once a memoir, a historical document, and a judicial treatise in support of his release from the asylum– is one of the most widely-known and cited first-person accounts of what is commonly called “madness”. Like the book, the Jefferson Market Library, is not only a location for literary pursuits, but once served as a court-house during the 1800s. In the garden behind the building stood a women’s house of detention, demolished in 1973. The brick-arched basement, served as a holding cell for prisoners on their way to jail or trial. In more recent times, the library was also the site of first community-based non-clinical peer-support group for voice-hearers in New York City. Today, as we celebrate Daniel Paul Schreber’s book within this courthouse-turned-library, there is a sense of redemption, of his words being taken seriously, given their rightful place not only within a literary institution, but also within a lawful one.”
The event brought well-over 150 people, many of which stated the power of reading Schreber’s words inside an old courthouse:
“It was amazing to be in that space and in those strange and tragic and wondrous discursive spaces, modern and old.”
“It was quite powerful for me to read Schreber to all who passed by and some who stopped to listen a bit. I loved hearing other readers and dropping in on whatever section they happened to be reading. The whole event was really great. Schreber would have been, and was, at home.”
“…it was a powerful experience. It truly felt like Schreber’s life, work, and experience, and the representation of those of others who have had similar experiences , were honored via this event.”



You’re Invited: IDHA Launch Event
Photos from Hearing Voices NYC Movie Weekend #EmergingProud
It’s been a great weekend of film screenings dedicated to looking at psychological crises in new ways.
Friday evening was a screening of CRAZYWISE at NYU Langone Hospital. Featuring a panel with Peri Zarella, Issa Ibrahim, Sascha DuBurl & co-director of CRAZYWISE Kevin Tomlinson.


Saturday afternoon was the NYC home-video launch of Healing Voices. The film followed with a panel Q & A featuring (among others) Oryx Cohen and Matt Estrada.


Healing Voices Screening May 13th
ISPS-US and Hearing Voices NYC Present: Healing Voices Movie & post-screening discussion with the filmmakers and subjects. Register HERE: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/healing-voices-recovering-community-nyc-tickets-33476211249 Sleep in on Saturday morning and then join us for a screening of Healing Voices at the Anthology Film Archive (32 2nd Ave) at 3:00 on May 13th, followed by a discussion with producers PJ Moynihan and Oryx Cohen and other special guests. Directions: Tickets are $8-$12. There are small number of discounted tickets available. Contact president@isps-us.org by May 10 for more information.
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