SUPPORT GROUPS

Hearing Voices Network, USA website - by and for people who hear voices or have unusual experiences. National directory of HVN peer support groups:
Hearing Voices Network, USA website

Bay Area Hearing Voices Network: online HVN peer and family-and-friends support groups (remember: listings are Pacific Time, so add 3 hours in Michigan):
Peer support
Friends-family-support

WEBSITES

Emotional CPR: Videos, books, and trainings on eCPR, a community-based peer-listening approach for providing support to those in emotional crisis. Developed by Dan Fisher, MD, PhD, a psychiatrist with lived experience of psychosis:
emotional-cpr.org

Tim Dreby, MFT, Redefining Psychosis, Oakland, CA: Information, psychotherapy, consultation, and training by an experienced clinician and “special message receiver” on helping with unusual experiences. Tim also has written an autobiography about his recovery from psychosis:
Tim Dreby

VIDEOS

Open Dialogue documentary: Interviews with Finnish therapists who created this evidence-based, family-inclusive approach to very early psychosis. Note: the documentary describes outcomes under ideal conditions - recovery estimates outside Finland’s National Health Services have been significantly lower:
Open Dialogue Documentary

“Surviving Schizophrenia”, 30 min film of three people (a college instructor, a law professor, and a psychologist) with experience of recovery from unusual beliefs, hearing voices, long hospitalization, and/or trauma:
Surviving schizophrenia

Eleanor Longden, PhD, psychology research manager. This is her 14 min TED talk about her recovery from schizophrenia:
Eleanor Longden, PhD - TED talk

BOOKS BY PEOPLE WITH EXPERIENCE OF PSYCHOSIS

Living With Voices: 50 Stories of Recovery
Includes several chapters explaining the “meaning of voices” approach, voices as metaphors, recovery, and other topics. Written in collaboration between people who hear voices and mental health professionals:
Living with Voices

Recovery: An Alien Concept?
Scottish teacher, counselor, and father, Ron Coleman, describes his recovery from 10-year experience coping with childhood sexual abuse, traumatic loss, schizophrenia, and substance abuse:
Recovery - Ron Coleman

Heartbeats of Hope: The Empowerment Way to Recover Your Life
Psychiatrist Daniel Fisher, MD, PhD, discusses his struggle with severe schizophrenia in his twenties, remembering childhood abuse, recovery with the help of peers and psychotherapy, and development of his approach to supporting his patients, emotional CPR:
Heartbeats of Hope

Schizophrenia: A Blueprint for Recovery
Delusions, Meaning, and Transformation
Two practical books on recovery by Milt Greek, a programmer and counselor, who recovered from psychosis that developed when he was a college student. Find links at his website:
www.coaching4psychosis.com

PUBLISHED EVIDENCE THAT RECOVERY FROM PSYCHOSIS IS POSSIBLE

Courtenay Harding et al., 1987: 68% of people with long-term, severe schizophrenia discharged from a state hospital with intensive community support were found to be living without disability or significant symptoms 25 years later. The large majority of the recovered group were not receiving ongoing treatment, including medication. In this video, Dr. Harding relates surprising details about this groundbreaking study not included in official publications:
Harding video

World Health Organization (de Giralamo, 1996): Up to 60% of people in developing countries diagnosed with DSM “schizophrenia” recover without disability. Only 5-25% of people receiving standard treatment in Western mental health systems achieve this level of recovery.

Jaakko Seikkula et al., 2011: Population prevalence of DSM “schizophrenia” declined up to 70% using Open Dialogue family therapy as the primary intervention. These outcomes appear to have held up over 19 years (Bergstrom et al., 2018).

Marius Romme, MD and Sandra Escher, PhD (1987; 2000): Greater acceptance of voices (“hallucinations”), exploring their purpose or meaning, and engaging with them in dialogue are some of the ways voice-hearers have recovered from negative, often disabling experiences.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for psychosis (CBTp) has a well-established safety and efficacy record dating back 30 years. Multiple RCTs and meta-analyses have found small to moderate effectiveness on average, suggesting that CBTp can make a substantial difference for some (Sitko et al., 2020).