Break Through Tools For The Hearing Voices Experience
An event for mental wellness professionals and social workers – New York City:
Struggling to make progress with your clients who hear voices and experience other hallucinations? The hearing voices experience is characterized by so called unusual beliefs which often lead to unusual behavior. There is a predictable relationship between the features (phenomenology) of hallucinations and the themes of unusual explanations that naturally arise. When you understand this, you can talk the language of your client, build rapport (connect) and help them move forward:
Day 1. Come and learn about a new way to understand the relationship between phenomenon and beliefs:
- The detail of the phenomenology – including the difference between thought, visual and auditory verbal anomalies
- How each feature of the phenomenon leads to particular kinds of unusual explanations and beliefs
- How behaviors can be explained as a natural mind response to unusual inputs to which we give significance
Day 2. Come and learn about six simple, practical tools that help hearers respond to the phenomenology of hallucinations in healthier ways, including:
- How to take the steam out of agressive voices using avatars and caricatures
- How to interrupt the thought train that voices provoke and redirect to something more interesting
- A daily pre-emptive approach to building confidence in your day
- How to coach friends/family in helping you in an emergency
Here is an article about my use of avatars:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/cope-three-unwanted-voices-live-inside-head/