Dialogical approaches to helping people who hear distressing voices: what are they and how do they work?

Section A is a scoping review of relational, dialogical approaches to helping people who hear distressing voices which are a new wave of therapeutic approaches which encourage and actively support dialogue between people and their voices. The review examines six extant dialogical approaches according to their similarities and differences in theory and implementation, together with empirical evidence of effectiveness.

Section B is a qualitative study which presents findings on a novel, dialogical approach stemming from the Hearing Voices Movement, The ‘Talking with Voices’ (TwV) approach. The study explored experiences of the TwV approach from the perspectives of 10 voice hearers and also 10 of their voices using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Results are presented according to participants’ experiences of change as a result of the approach, along with consideration of barriers of and facilitators to change. The findings provide support for the acceptability of dialogical approaches for helping people who hear distressing voices. The study itself also demonstrates how perspectives of voice hearers and voices can be centred in future evaluation in this area