Peter Bullimore, Founder & Chair of the UK Paranoia Network, is an international trainer and facilitator and is an expert on the topic of hearing voices by lived experience.
This August, he returns to Australia to facilitate a very unique one-day workshop exploring the role of trauma and fear in mental wellbeing, and understanding and working with voices.
Studies have found that between four and 10 per cent of people across the world hear voices. Between 70 and 90 cent of people who hear voices do so following traumatic events. These voices can be male, female, without gender, child, adult, human or non-human. People may hear one voice or many. Some people report hearing hundreds, although in almost all reported cases, one dominates above the others.
It is not so much the voices that are the problem, but the difficulties that some people have in coping with them. Whilst one in three people who hears voices becomes a psychiatric patient – two in three people cope well, don’t need psychiatric care and live and function well.
Voices often reflect important aspects of the hearer’s emotional state – emotions that are often unexpressed by the hearer. Hearing voices in itself is not related to the illness of schizophrenia. In population research, only 16% of the whole group of voice hearers are diagnosed with schizophrenia.*
Many voices can be unthreatening and even positive. It’s wrong to turn this into a shameful problem that people either feel they have to deny or to take medication to suppress.**
Peter Bullimore believes many people believe hearing voices is a normal part of life, not a mental illness. Using coping strategies can help manage voices without necessarily eliminating them.
David Facer from the Australian Mental Health Recovery Consultants, will be supporting Peter’s tour and the development of Hearing Voices workshops.
Together, Peter and David will assist participants to work through paranoia and help make sense of unusual beliefs.
For further information about the tour, or to speak to someone about hearing voices, contact MIFQ on 07 3358 4424.
Working Through Paranoia & Making Sense of Unusual Beliefs
7 August – Albert Waterways Community Centre, Cnr Hooker & Sunshine Blvd MERMAID WATERS
8 August – Venue to be confirmed TOOWOOMBA
11 August – Calliope Community Centre, 3 Don Cameron Dr, Calliope GLADSTONE
14 August – Merthyr Road Uniting Church, 52 Merthyr Road, New Farm BRISBANE
Workshops are a ticketed event and run 8:30am to 4:30pm, refreshments & lunch provided.
*Romme & Escher 2001
**Professor Marius Romme