Living with Voices: 50 Stories of Recovery, Marius Romme, Sandra Escher, Jacqui Dillon, Dirk Corstens & Mervyn Morris, PCCS Books, 2009, £20.00 pb, 346 pp. ISBN 9781906254223

This is the third book in a trilogy about people who hear voices who reclaim their lives by changing the relationship they have with their voices. Unfortunately, there are many problems with this book. The authors have a narrow term of reference in describing the difficulties that many people have. They focus on the disruptive effect of hearing voices to the exclusion of the difficulties in social or occupational functioning which is often more disruptive to peoples' lives. There is more to recovery than managing voices. However, this book presents people as ‘voice hearers’ - an engulfing role which undermines the identity that many strive to recover. The authors do not distinguish between the various aetiological causes of hallucinatory experiences - people who have different diagnoses have varying capacities to make sense of their experiences. The book also has pessimistic views about psychiatric services and treatments which inadvertently serve to stigmatise the many people who use and benefit from them.

There is little in the way of robust evidence that this approach works - most evidence is anecdotal and expressed opinion. The construct the authors advocate appears useful in its simplicity but is actually superficial and makes causal links which are unconvincing. Perhaps the most irritating aspect of this book is the smug and self-congratulatory tone used to reference work from a small pool of like-minded people. It ignores the possibility that this approach may not be useful for everyone. Some may actually benefit from their difficulties being described in terms of biology.

Having said this, there is still room to notice the bravery and courage of the 50 people, who have been crippled and stuck by the relentless persecution of voices, for their efforts to turn their lives around. It is a valid question to ask whether traditional services take enough notice of the emotional consequences of these experiences. Most services do now recognise that peer-led hearing voices groups are helpful, as are informal networks useful to develop confidence to take ownership of one's life. In spite of this, many would probably acknowledge there is room for improvement. Professionals are often not aware or give little credit for this work. By tentatively linking hearing voices with stress and life experiences, meaning can be explored and strategies developed to exercise control over the voices for those who find this approach helpful.