We are delighted to announce that the Hearing the Voice project led by the University of Durham has been awarded a Wellcome Trust Collaborative Award to continue its interdisciplinary research into voice-hearing and auditory hallucinations for another five years. This is one of the first grants ever to be awarded under the Wellcome Trust’s new Collaborative Award scheme.
The next phase of our research will extend our investigation of voice-hearing into a number of new and exciting areas. Together, our team will be investigating:
•How voices vary in their sensory qualities, from forming part of multi-sensory experiences to being ‘soundless’ voices
•The importance of memory and trauma in understanding voices
•The relationship between voices and creativity, across various art forms
•Understanding the role of language and communication in the experience of heard voices
•The emotional impact and distress that voices can cause
•How voices change over time at different stages in a person’s life
•The social impact and context of hearing voices
As in our previous work, our team will draw on insights from a wide range of disciplines, including cognitive neuroscience, psychology, psychiatry, philosophy, English literature, theology, and the medical humanities. We will also work closely with an international network of over 20 collaborators who specialize in voice-hearing and hallucination research.
The new award will allow us to continue our work with local clinicians, mental health professionals, voice-hearers and other ‘experts by experience’, and includes an ambitious programme of public engagement aimed at improving public understanding of voice-hearing and dispelling some of the myths and misconceptions that surround this experience.
Our work at Hearing the Voice would not be possible without the support of groups and organisations such as Intervoice, the Hearing Voices Network (HVN), the Lived Experience Research Network (LERN), and the Northumberland, Tyne & Wear (NTW) and Tees, Esk, and Wear Valley (TEWV) NHS Foundation Trusts. We would like to thank these organisations for their support over the past three years, and look forward to continuing our collaboration in the second phase of the project.
This announcement has been reposted from the project Hearing the Voice project site: http://hearingthevoice.org/2015/08/18/hearing-the-voice-funded-for-another-five-years/
