Get Real: Talking mental health & disability
Get Real presents frank and fearless conversations about mental health and disability, including people with lived experience, frontline workers in the sector, as well as policymakers and advocates. Get Real is produced and hosted by Emily Webb and co-hosted by Karenza Louis-Smith on behalf of ermha365 Complex Mental Health and Disability Services provider (https://www.ermha.org/).
Get Real: Talking mental health & disability
Hearing Voices: support for voice hearers
Hearing voices is often assumed to be a symptom of a mental health condition. However this is not always the case and up to 1 in 10 people hear voices, making it not an uncommon human experience.
The Voices Vic program is led by peers with lived and living experience in hearing voices, seeing visions or having other sensory experiences. This program offers recovery groups, mentoring and support across Victoria.
Our guests for this episode are Janet Karagounis, Senior Peer Mentor and Tali Brash, AOD & Mental Health, Lived & Living Experience for Uniting Vic Tas.
We spoke at the Complex needs conference in March 2025 after they gave a presentation "Overcoming barriers and simplifying support for people who hear voices and experience unusual sensory events".
More info (not an exhaustive list):
Voices Vic support for hearing voices
The Voices Clinic (Swinburne University)
Hearing Voices Community Group (Darwin, NT)
Voices and Visions peer support group (Sunshine Coast, Qld)
ermha365 provides mental health and disability support for people in Victoria and the Northern Territory. Find out more about our services at our website.
Helplines (Australia):
Lifeline 13 11 14
QLIFE 1800 184 527
13 YARN 13 92 76
Suicide Callback Service 1300 659 467
ermha365 acknowledges that our work in the community takes place on the Traditional Lands of many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and therefore respectfully recognise their Elders, past and present, and the ongoing Custodianship of the Land and Water by all Members of these Communities.
We recognise people with lived experience who contribute to GET REAL podcast, and those who love, support and care for them. We recognise their strength, courage and unique perspective as a vital contribution so that we can learn, grow and achieve better outcomes together.
Get Real is recorded on the unceded lands of the Boon, Wurrung and Wurundjeri peoples of the Kulin Nation. We acknowledge and pay our respects to their elders, past and present. We also acknowledge that the First Peoples of Australia are the first storytellers, the first artists and the first creators of culture and we celebrate their enduring connections to country. Knowledge and stories celebrate their enduring connections to country knowledge and stories.
ermha365:Welcome to Get Real talking. Mental health and disability brought to you by the team at Irma 365.
ermha365:Join our hosts, Emily Webb and Karenza Louis-Smith, as we have frank and fearless conversations with special guests about all things mental health and complexity with special guests about all things mental health and complexity.
ermha365:We recognise people with lived experience of mental ill health and disability, as well as their families and carers. We recognise their strength, courage and unique perspective as a vital contribution to this podcast so we can learn, grow and achieve better outcomes together.
Emily Webb:We're here live at the Complex Needs Conference in Melbourne and I've got two people from Voices, vic, which is part of Uniting Vic, tas, and I've got Janet and Tali, and they actually just did a presentation about the services that they are with and what happens with the group. So welcome, janet and Tali. Thank you.
Tali:Thanks for having us.
Janet:Thank you, looking forward to it Now.
Emily Webb:First of all, I want to ask both of you and Janet we can start with you why did you want to come to the Complex Needs Conference and how did your presentation go?
Janet:Oh well, firstly, the presentation went really well. We had a full room and people standing up as well. It was really interesting because at this conference I really don't know that many people. Usually I go to a conference and know a lot of people because I've been working with Uniting for 15 years, and why we came to the conference is to let people know about Voices Vic, so that's for people that hear voices otherwise diagnosed with schizophrenia and other ailments. We like to use the word hearing voices for things like hallucinations or visions, tactile, whatever and it's important to get the message out there that we exist and we've been going for 15 years, as I said, so we're doing well. The approach actually came from the Netherlands by a social psychiatrist, so he actually developed this method of basically connecting, talking and getting to hear people's stories, validating, and one of the greatest benefits is hearing voices groups. And the other reason I came was to see if I could upskill myself as well through learnings from others.
Emily Webb:What about you, Tali? Why were you interested in coming and how did you find the presentation?
Tali:Yeah, I really just wanted to, I guess, be with my colleagues and I know Fiona and Janet are very experienced in speaking at conferences and sharing the message around Voices, vic, and I think you know just sharing that message of hope and that recovery is possible. And hearing them I get inspired. I've heard their personal stories many times, but hearing them share, I think, is you know, it's the real stories that sometimes at conferences, like you, don't often hear those, and I think they are so powerful. It's what makes our training that we offer really powerful as well is hearing those personal stories. So I think, yeah, just bridging the gap, lowering the stigma, knowing that there are places and opportunities that people can go if they have family, friends or carers who hear voices, voice hearers themselves or any clinicians and mental health professionals who want to learn as well how they can support voice hearers. We wanted to share the message and also, just, yeah, I've met some really amazing people today, networking and mingling over yummy food.
Emily Webb:I know it's all about the networking, right? Yeah, can I ask you both about your lived and living experience, as much as you're comfortable sharing, janet, what's your living experience with hearing voices and why you're part of?
Janet:Voices, vic. I actually started hearing voices when I was about between the ages of four and seven. I didn't become problematic till my late teens, early twenties, and I wasn't diagnosed with chronic schizophrenia until 29, which also included a stint with AOD as well. In my time, because I've been around the traps for a while, there was no such thing as dual diagnosis. You either went with AOD or you went into mental health, so they chose to put me into mental health, to mental health, so they chose to put me into mental health. From that I had a revolving door relationship with mental health services and hospitals and by the time the Hearing Voices approach came to Melbourne, I was fortunate enough to go to WA, western Australia, where they had a Hearing Voices network and they did a conference, the first conference in the Southern Hemisphere, and I got to see people from the UK and other countries who were living the dream. Basically, they were going to conferences, they were working, they were working with other people. So the experience of lived and living experience working with one people. So the experience of lived and living experience working with one another, peers.
Janet:And I remember turning around to a support person I had at the time, sandy, and said when we go back to Melbourne I'm going to get my medication lowered and I'm going to get a job. And she was like being curious, sandy. She was like, oh, just what sort of job. I said in the supermarket. You're realizing how difficult it is to get a job in the supermarket these days? So from that I had my medication lowered. So I could feel that was a whole new experience. And eventually a position came up with Voices Vic, and it started as a project and I was the token voice hearer and from there I've worked all my way up, right up to senior mentor now. So I'm mentoring the new generation coming through, which is quite interesting.
Emily Webb:And that conference gave you, I guess, hope, inspiration Like what did it feel like to hear what you were hearing from the people who had experiences maybe similar to yours?
Janet:It was incredible because their experiences were trauma-based. Mine was trauma-based domestic violence DV. That's why I started hearing voices, but I had positive voices at the beginning. Here were other people from other countries all over the world talking about their relationship with their voices. I didn't know you could have a relationship with your voices. Well, I knew you could have a relationship, but the system at that stage was saying your voices aren't real. And because I wouldn't denounce my voices because, like I said, I had universal voices who guided me through some of the most traumatic events in my life I was never going to denounce my voices, so that made me non-compliant, lacked insight. All those big labels that they stick on your folder, treatment resistant and watching people working and making a living and being creative and being special and working with their voices and walking alongside of other people inspired me greatly and I'm hoping I'm doing the same for people today.
Emily Webb:Yeah, well, it sounds like it and I think it's really interesting for people who don't have the lived experience that some of our guests do and may have a belief about what it's like to hear voices. I think it's really important, the work that you're doing to talk about this. I'm really grateful you're here, Tali. What about yourself? What's your living experience?
Tali:I was creatively expressing my voices. I came from an acting background. I studied psychology and had created a show called the Voices of Tully and that for me was a really healing experience. And I ran programs and I didn't know that I was a voice hearer until I did the Voices Vic training. I connected with the Hearing Voices Network and then I had traumatic incident happen where my voices got really loud and I went to Janet's Hearing Voices support group and that was a place for me to I'm going to get emotional, but that was a place for me where I really was able to identify that oh, there are other people who have these experiences and felt firsthand the power of being amongst other people who were able to talk about them. And I also felt like I'd had a really I'd heard a lot of other people's experiences of navigating the mental health system and I felt really grateful that I hadn't had to go down that route because creative and alternative approaches of recovery had really supported me with my mental health. So for me I am really grateful now that I then went on to become the program manager for Voices Vic. I've been with them for quite a few years.
Tali:I have then moved on to becoming the team leader of Lived in the Me Experience at Uniting and, you know, championing these programs and these alternative approaches. I really want people to know that, yes, there are clinical services and medication and things that you know often can really support people, but there are also these alternative approaches of recovery that people can access, like recovery groups groups, like going to our training, creative expression. You know that that can also be just as beneficial and give people peace and ability to navigate life with their mental health and with their voices and my. Currently. Now I'm about to move into a manager role in the carers division and, and I think in just stepping about to step into that, I've also come to really land in my own that I'm going through living experience as a carer and that feels somewhat new for me because I've always drawn on my lived experience in mental health. But this feels like, yeah, a next chapter for me as well, to continuing to champion the importance of hearing lived and living experience voices in our community.
Emily Webb:Yeah, it sounds so interesting and I wanted to ask a question and you know you can say yes or no to answering it. In popular culture, in the general community, who do not hear voices, there is a particular stigma around it or a thought around it or fear around it, possibly, you know, wanting to say it is bad or it is dangerous or it is, it's got to be fixed. I want to get both of your thoughts on that and if stigma is a really big barrier or even just public education to people outside of the group. Janet, I'll start with you. What are your thoughts about that?
Janet:Stigma still exists. It is getting worse instead of better, I feel because of the media, instead of better, I feel because of the media, especially on television, on commercial television. They want the commercial stories, the ones that grab people's attention, which is the one in 100 who does a reportable crime, either jail time or in forensic care. Success stories don't usually make the media, even though, I must admit, we have been trying to approach stigma and we try to do that in group, especially to make people feel valued and important, and I've done some media releases, so have some of the other team as well. We've been recognised in some forms, like I think it was the Age or something, I can't remember which one it was. It was a while ago and stigma is huge.
Janet:Everyone's working on stigma, but not really for voice hearers, for depression and anxiety, it's like, yeah, everyone's got it, it's okay, go and seek help, but the black dog is schizophrenia, I think. Or hearing voices I think that's still frowned upon, yet there's so many people doing so much stuff. There's even a show called Perception, which is from the USA, which tackles hearing voices, and so for those that are curious, remember it's a TV show and I do recommend it as a voice hearer myself, they're actually touching on stigma medication, someone who's highly qualified, who hears voices and is working with the FBI solving murders. And the voices help.
Emily Webb:I will get details of that in the show notes. I actually think I might have that on a list on one of the many streaming services that I have, yes.
Janet:I do.
Emily Webb:I certainly think, over some of the guests that we've spoken to for this podcast, it does seem that when mental health gets a bit complex beyond anxiety and depression, we know they are very debilitating.
Emily Webb:But when it gets a little bit more complicated, a little bit more dual diagnosis, it's not as easy to be like are you okay, or hey, it's okay to talk about mental health. Yeah, it's definitely hard, and I think schizophrenia is a condition where there's still a lot of fear because of reporting about things like crimes and things like that. But there are many people living with schizophrenia who are living really great lives and you know like there's the ups and downs of life, like anyone else. So, yeah, I found that really. I just really wanted to get your thoughts about it because I do not have lived experience of hearing voices, but I think, God, it would be really hard for people you know who do, when there's all this stuff around. Tali, what about you? What do you think about that? About stigma and the need for, I guess, awareness education in the community who do not hear voices?
Tali:I mean, I think we see it, we hear it so much when people come to our training. You know we have social worker grads or you know clinical mental health professionals who say, like I never learned about this, who have said you know, I thought that when someone presented and said that they hear voices, that the answer was medication straight away, that there wasn't any other alternative approach, that the approach was to try and get rid of the voices, and so that's where it's so important and that's so much of the work that we are doing is to try and educate people that there are other ways and that actually the goal is not about trying to get rid of a person's voices If the person themselves wants to change their relationship, or maybe they have a particular voice that is really harsh or cruel and they don't want that voice around. It's working with the person, with what they want. But so many people who come to our groups as well say that they don't ever feel comfortable or haven't felt comfortable to share with someone, out of fear of the response that they're going to get if they do share about their voices. It is still taboo.
Tali:I think a lot of people don't have the confidence on knowing how to have that conversation with a voice hearer and how to allow them to feel safe. I think the people that come to our training afterwards feel a lot more confident with it, but there's a long way to go, I think. In just, yeah, I think the stigma, as Janet said, is still really prevalent, but I feel like the more that we are hearing stories, the more that we share our voice, the more that we, you know, offer training and the groups, especially, a place for people to come and to share it that that then ripples out. They can go back to their families, they can go back to their friends, to their clinicians, to their peer workers, to know that it's okay to have conversations around their voices and to know that there aren't going to be negative consequences as well if they do share about their voices.
Emily Webb:And I want to ask this question and this is me being like having no idea, and I just feel like it might be something that other people would ask Is hearing voices always associated with certain mental health diagnoses, like schizophrenia, or and it's not necessary that if you do have schizophrenia that you hear voices? You know what I mean, Like, what's it all about? I?
Tali:guess. I mean, I really believe that a lot of people it's like we say in our training, like that hearing voices is a really common human experience and I for myself, have not been diagnosed with mental health disorder or anything related to that. I, I, I don't. I think that's where the stigma part has come in, is that? You know, even with my show when it was called the voices of Tully, I had quite a few people say to me oh, do you have schizophrenia? And I had never thought of that as being like it wasn't my reality.
Tali:So I think it comes back to the stigma piece that each person's experience of hearing voices also differs so greatly. For some people it's a sensory experience. Some people hear, you know, guides from the angels. Some people feel that they're communicating with ancestors that have passed. There are so many different ways that people experience hearing voices that to label it and to say that it's directly a mental health disorder as well, there's a lot of, you know, spiritual connections as well and communities who really embrace hearing voices as, like this, really powerful way of connecting. So it's yeah, I hope I answered your question. It's quite complex, like that in itself is quite complex.
Emily Webb:I'm glad I asked it, even though, look, I do sound silly sometimes when I do ask questions. But I actually, because really when you think about hearing voices for someone who doesn't experience it, your mind immediately goes to mental health or there's something not right. But it makes total sense when people can hear voices for all sorts of reasons, because historically there are stories about people who have heard voices. I mean, whether or not you believe in the Bible or the Joan of Arc, you know, I mean it kind of makes total sense. I myself I'm quite open-minded to things. I've got some people that I know in my life who are quite psychic, like they just have that skill and I'm like cool, like I am totally open to that. So thank you for clarifying that, because I don't want to sound like a dumbass saying, oh so is it only people with schizophrenia. But I think it's good that we ask these questions.
Tali:It's a great question and, just like you've literally spoken to one of our slides in our training, where we share, you know, a list of names of people from the Bible musicians, artists, philosophers, who all have, you know, said that they hear voices and that it's been such a powerful way for them to get to where they got to and the ripple effect that they had in the world, so that we speak to that in our training. So thank you for asking that. No, problem.
Emily Webb:I think I'm going to have to come and do your training.
Janet:Yes, I thought that would be amazing.
Emily Webb:Janet, do you?
Janet:want to add anything. Do you want to add anything? Yeah, I just wanted to add that Native Americans, the First Nation people, Maori culture, you have your spirit guides from Native American Indians and if you don't hear voices, then there's something wrong with you. You're not connected with your ancestry. Then there's something wrong with you If you're not connected with your ancestry, the First Nation people here, the elders. They go to sleep or go to dream time to communicate with their ancestors and to look over the tribe and stuff like that.
Janet:That would be all classified as voice hearers. Same with Maori culture it's very heavy on spirituality or connecting with your ancestors, your past, the land, what you can see and what you can't see. So I think it's really important to remember that. This goes way back and it goes back to a lot of cultures, Even the Greek philosophers. They used to sit around and where democracy comes from in the first place, and philosophy itself, they used to sit around conversing with their voices. You've got people like Aristotle and stuff who actually heard voices. I think he didn't have a happy ending like Joan of Arc, but unfortunately, even then some of them would get persecuted for their ideas and their way of thinking.
Emily Webb:I'm finding this conversation so fascinating and, to be honest, it's actually totally brought in my mind because I didn't know all the things that Voices Vic does, like the service that Uniting Vic TAS does. As we wrap up and as we, you know, we've explored some stuff and I actually hope to do a little bit more about this. I think it's really interesting. So I'll definitely be in contact, but is there anything, any final thoughts that you would like listeners to know about? Anything, and even about you know accessing Voices Vic, coming and taking part, and we'll certainly have the details in the show notes. Janet, do you want to start and give us some final thoughts?
Janet:It's really important. Llew, lived and Living Experience Workforce Voices Vic has been at the forefront of that. We're doing the real work, we're not taking a stick. I feel it's really important to know that it's voice hearers walking alongside other voice hearers. We're not better than them, we're not worse than them. We really believe in IPS, intentional peer support, and we do the hard stuff and we train anyone who wants to listen and by training it's a bit of education, it's a bit of facts, a bit of research and lived and living experience of our own journeys and 15 years of experience of running groups and hearing many stories and relaying some of that org to any person. And the mentoring is to assist other orgs with setting up hearing voices groups. And we can do secondary consults for clinicians if they have got a typically complex case.
Emily Webb:And we're all about the complex right now because we're at the Complex Needs Conference and that's what everyone in this place is about. I know at Irma 365 we yeah, that's our kind of wheelhouse, like the, I guess, specialty we do other stuff but yeah, it's such a fascinating area and so needed Tali. What about you? Do you have any final thoughts?
Tali:Yeah, just if anyone wants to reach out or to refer someone, we've got groups for young people between 16 and 25, both face-to-face and online, and we also have an adults group in St Kilda for 25 plus.
Tali:And I guess with our training we've got an option either to do three days or four days, depending on whether people just want to learn the hearing voices approach and how to have those conversations with voice hearers. And we also have family, friends and carers and voice hearers who attend the training. The third day of our training we cover voice profiling, which is a technique to really get into understanding the different voices, and it's really interesting to learn that process. And then for anyone who wants to set up a hearing voices group themselves, that is what the fourth day of our training covers. So we're not just about people coming to us for our groups. Our groups are at waitlist and at capacity a lot of the time, but we also are really passionate about seeing other hearing voices groups get up and running. You don't have to be a voice hearer to facilitate a group. As long as you've done our training, then you can set up a group.
Tali:So yeah check out our details in the show notes and reach out if you want to connect.
Janet:On that point, it's really important to know that there was a research paper done in the UK over all the groups they run, which is over 300 groups, and they found little to no difference whether a group was facilitated by a voice hearer to a non-voice hearer. So in other words, it's how you facilitate, not what you facilitate.
Emily Webb:And so I mean just a question on that, because lived and living experience is so important. But from your perspectives, like that's cool, like yeah, it's great, like more, more groups would be fine and it's but it's about how you do it and doing the training and having the understanding.
Janet:So empowerment is that non-voice hearer. Their job is to make themselves redundant and create a new job for themselves and get a voice hearer. Their job is to make themselves redundant and create a new job for themselves and get a voice hearer to eventually facilitate. So I think you asked me my journey and I forgot to say that I started off in a hearing voices group. After becoming a revolving door patient, I eventually ended up in a hearing voices group by non-voice hearers. Then they kept referring to me for questions about voices specific. Then I became a co-facilitator. Then one day my facilitator walked down and said the group is yours and I became a casual paid. That was my first job in like 20, 15 years or something itself. I got paid to run the Hearing Voices group and from then that became my personal voice and I started making pearls.
Emily Webb:It certainly sounds like a habit and I think that's really cool. It's like capacity building, right, like capacity building and then building on the you know, leveraging what you know, like I know, with writing, people say write what you know best. It's lived and living experience. Is that so I want to say to both of you thank you so much for joining me. I absolutely love this conversation because I've learnt heaps and I think that's great and I think people listening will too. So thank you so much, thank you so much for having us.
Emily Webb:Thank you, it's awesome, and we will certainly have the details for all the information in the show notes, so definitely get in touch if you're interested to find out more. So thanks again.
ermha365:You've been listening to Get Real talking mental health and disability, brought to you by the team at Irma 365. Get Real is produced and presented by Emily Webb, with Corenza Louis-Smith and special guests. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.
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