Entrevoces is a project born from Intervoice’s invitation to celebrate their seventh international congress in Spain. Intervoice is an international network dedicated to the study, education and investigation of voice hearing, made up of hundreds of groups in 25 countries. Its importance in the mental health field has been essential in order to be able to think about psychological pain from an entirely different perspective to the one offered by the biomedical model, which still predominates in the fields of psychiatry and psychology. Contrary to the interpretations that seem to think that having auditory hallucinations (and other unusual psychological experiences) is the result of a biochemical imbalance (something not working in our brains) and that their content is irrelevant, the international Hearing Voices movement suggests that this is a normal human experience and not the mere symptom of an illness. Therefore, the content of these experiences is essential in order to establish a real road towards recovery, as auditory hallucinations are relevant in the lives of those who experiment them, and frequently, when they have a negative charge, they are the reaction to a traumatic event that has not been adequately resolved. The members of Entrevoces share this different approach towards psychological pain, which doesn’t simply lead us to the indiscriminate consumption of psychiatric drugs and to absurdly circular situations where the symptoms and the diagnosis embrace in a completely inoperative vicious circle (you are “mentally ill” because you hear voices, you hear voices because you are “mentally ill”). Our group is made up of people who have been diagnosed and of professionals actively involved in the search for new pathways that take into account an empathetic approach, reducing psychological suffering from the greatest respect for self-determination. Our intent is to explore the relationship that exists between an individual life and these psychological experiences in order to achieve strategies that allow us to face madness from perspectives that do not situate individuals in passive, stigmatized and victimized roles. The philosophy that has propelled Intervoice since 1997, when an international conference was held in Maastrich between voice hearers and professionals, has been to investigate and socialize understanding, uniting the experiences of the different groups present worldwide. In this seventh congress that will take place in Madrid in 2015, we welcome the initiative and bring it to Spain, in order to promote the study of real alternatives to those offered predominantly in the public and private spheres of mental illness healthcare, and increase communication and support between equals. We want to reach beyond the stigma associated with hearing voices (and other forms of expressing psychological pain). Let’s take advantage of the power of the word in defending listening as a necessary step in order to get closer to any unusual or not shared reality (whether it be a psychotic reality or not). Let’s listen to the person who lives this reality. Without this starting point, any therapeutic strategy is doomed to fail from the outset. Listening is therapeutic, both on an individual and a collective level. To listen and to be heard are the pathways that lead to the comprehension of one’s own pain and the pain of others.
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