Making Sense of Voices: Two-day Maastricht Interview Training workshop

The 24 workshop participants and the workshop facilitators Peter Bullimore and Shaun Hunt

On Monday 15 and Tuesday 16 December 24 participants attended the two-day Maastricht Interview Training workshop. The workshop participants came mainly from Cork, but there were also participants from Dublin, Laois, Kilkenny, Kerry and Kilkenny. The majority of the participants were mental health nurses, with the other participants being voice- hearers, clinical psychologists, occupational therapists, art therapists and social workers. The workshop was organised by the Irish Institute of Mental Health Nursing and the School of Nursing and Midwifery, with funding from the HSE Dublin North Nursing and Midwifery Planning Development Unit.

The Maastricht Interview is now a well-established semi-structured questionnaire used with people who hear voices. The questionnaire helps professionals and people who hear voices to explore in-depth the experience of voice hearing. It can assist people who hear voices to overcome the shame of talking about voices, to validate and acknowledge their experience, to offer space and support to systematically map all aspects of the voices, thereby building insight, and empowering the individual by promoting acceptance and the opportunity to take charge.

The workshop, which was evaluated very well by the participants, was the latest in a series of hearing voices workshops held over the last few years, to provide professionals and people who hear voices with new insights, strategies and collaborative ways of working with people who hear voices, and to establish a nation-wide hearing voices network, as part of an international collaboration between people with lived experience, their families and professionals to develop an alternative approach to coping with emotional distress that is empowering and useful to people, and does not start from the assumption that they have an illness.

On behalf of the participants, I would like to thank Peter and Shaun for sharing her experiences and insights.

Harry Gijbels

Senior Lecturer

Mental Health Nursing

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