Update from CW:
This programme has been repeated, and may still be repeated.12.01.2009
The UBUNTU CENTRE, the Non Profit
Organisation, for and by persons with psychosocial disabilities, has the
pleasure to announce the screening of the Docu-Drama, The Doctor WHO Hears
Voices, on Cape Town TV (CTV), on Thursday 8 January 2009 at 20:30.
Drama-doc about voice hearer and professional: working together is way
forward says international hearing voices movement
The doctor who hears
voices: ...
featuring Rufus May
and actress Ruth
Wilson
The UBUNTU CENTRE, received the
rights from the producer Leo Reagan, to have it screened on CTV. The following
is the press release which was put out by the organisation called INTERVOICE on ... regarding the film.
INTERVOICE welcomes
the broadcast of this critically acclaimed and groundbreaking drama-doc about
the experience of hearing voices.
In the
reconstructed documentary, INTERVOICE member, Rufus May shows it is possible to
help someone who hears overwhelming and destructive voices to live their life
without recourse to coercive treatment and/or powerful medications. “The doctor
who hears voices” not only challenges the stigma and prejudices that surround
the experience of hearing voices it also provides powerful evidence of the
possibility of how people who hear voices can be assisted in learning ways to
accept their voices and to recover their life.
This documentary
focuses on Rufus' and his support support of Ruth, a junior doctor who is
suspended from her job after she starts to hear a voice telling her to kill
herself. It follows their 18-month journey as Ruth is determined to become well
enough to retain her job and manage her voice and health problems.
It shows how
Rufus's innovative approach to working with people who hear voices - including
most importantly: respecting the persons own explanation for their experience
-getting them to discuss what their voices are saying and what they represent,
whilst also opposing the often automatic and unreliable diagnosis of
schizophrenia. Something that rarely if ever happens in most mental health
services.
Rufus is not only a
leading expert in the field of psychology he also speaks from personal
experience. At 18, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and told he would be
taking medication for the rest of his life. Rufus quickly decided that his
experience would not hold him back and against his doctor's advice came off his
medication and trained as a clinical psychologist. He is now revered in his
field and has recently been nominated for the Mind Champion of the Year Award
2008 for his efforts to improve public understanding of mental health
issues.
As Rufus
says
"In the film
"The Doctor Who Hears Voices" I am called a Maverick Psychologist but it is
important to state there is whole school of maverick psychology to which I
belong, called the International Hearing Voices movement. This movement is a
combination of activists, therapists, academics and voice hearers all on an
equal footing. The original Maverick refused to brand his cattle - we similarly
refuse to brand people as schizophrenic when they hear voices, instead looking
at the voices as messengers about peoples lives. In the film I am shown talking
to Ruth's voices. This pioneering approach comes directly from my training with
members of the international voice hearing movement from pioneers like Ron Coleman, Marius
Romme, Sandra Escher, and Dirk Corstens to name but a
few."
INTERVOICE
President, Professor Marius Romme, a respected social psychiatrist called on
Mental Health Services to assist in the the further development of this
approach:
“This programme
shows that by simply sitting down and talking to a voice hearer about their
experience, validating the reality of what is happening to them and working
alongside them to better understand the message the voices bring, then dealing
with these issues, a person can start to live their life again. Rufus is only
one committed expert by profession, imagine if whole services worked in the same
way? This approach is not controversial or dangerous, it is based on over 20
years of research and action and now with initiatives in 19 countries across the
world. It represents a major challenge to the approach used by psychiatric
services. We urge professionals to listen to what their patients are telling
them and help them understand their experiences.”
We are an network of people who believe we should
listen to voices. The film takes this movement to a new audience. Perhaps one
day around the world we will all listen to voices!
END
Information for Editors
For more information about
our approach to hearing voices visit the INTERVOICE site at www.intervoiceonline.org
Read more about the Hearing Voices Movement at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearing_Voices_Movement
Contact: Paul Baker, INTERVOICE
coordinator on + 34 965263097 or email us: admin@intervoiceonline.org
Some facts about hearing
voices:
Hearing voices in
itself is not a symptom of an illness, but is apparent in 2 - 4 % of the
population (some research gives higher estimates) and even more (about 8%) have
peculiar personal convictions, that we call delusions, and do so without being
ill. Whilst one in three becomes a psychiatric patient - two in three can cope
well and are in no need of psychiatric care and no diagnosis can be given
because 2/3 are quite healthy and well functioning. It is very significant that
there are in our society more people hearing voices who never became psychiatric
patients than there are people who hear voices and become psychiatric patients.
Marius Romme (2001)
Psychiatry in our
western culture unjustly identifies hearing voices with schizophrenia. Going to
a psychiatrist with hearing voices gives you an 80% chance of getting a
diagnosis of schizophrenia.
Marius Romme (2001)
In our research
concerning people who hear voices we found that in 77% of the people diagnosed
with schizophrenia the hearing of voices was related to traumatic experiences.
These traumatic experiences varied from being sexually abused, physically
abused, being extremely belittled over long periods from young age, being
neglected during long periods as a youngster, being very aggressively treated in
marriage, not being able to accept ones sexual identity, etc
Marius Romme
(2006)
Hearing voices in
itself is not related to the illness of schizophrenia. In population research
only 16% of the whole group of voice hearers can be diagnosed with
schizophrenia.
Marius Romme (2001)
The prognosis of
hearing voices is more positive than generally is perceived. In Sandra Escher's
research with children hearing voices, she followed 82 children over a period of
four years. In that period 64% of the children’s voices disappeared congruently
with learning to cope with emotions and becoming less stressed. In children with
whom the voices were psychiatrised and made a part of an illness and not given
proper attention, voices did not vanish, but became worse, the development of
those children was delayed.
Marius Romme (2006)
Thanks to Moosa Salie, Facilitator, UBUNTU CENTRE.
Ubuntu Centre, a non-profit organisation. Registration # 062-063-NPO . P.O. Box
4398 Cape Town 8000.
