“Prostor” is a civil association from Belgrade, Serbia, active in the field of Community Mental Health. Some years ago, we were approached by Slobodanka Popović, a systemic psychotherapist who was active in the “Hearing Voices” movement in London at the time. Since Serbia is her home country, and the system of mental health here is on a rather low level of development with a great need for change, together with some colleagues she came to the idea to bring the “Hearing Voices” approach/movement to the region of ex-Yugoslavia. This approach spreads mostly through organization of training and education for medical staff and psychiatric care users and formation of self-help groups.

Since then, together we organized series of lectures for experts by experience, medical staff, students and general public. Leading experts in the field Rachel Waddingham, Dirk Corstens and Slobodanka Popović were our trainers and we managed to launch the first “Hearing Voices” peer support group in Belgrade, in collaboration with civil associations “Duša” and “Videa” (organizations of psychiatry survivors), and to deliver basic training to more than 100 professionals in the field of mental health. We also organized one training within a psychiatric institution (in Serbia we still have old fashioned “asylums”), creating a platform for the new group to start within this hospital.

On Slobodanka’s initiative, the West Balkan Hearing Voices Network was also founded including our representatives (organizations and institutions): Citizens association “Tavan”, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, home for people with “mental health issues” “Dom za psihički bolesne Turnić” in Rijeka, Croatia and “Kralji ulice”, civil association from Ljubljana, Slovenia.

In 2017/2018 we managed to get support for the "Hearing Voices" project, supported by the Tempus Foundation within the EU “Erasmus +” program, an educational project, implemented in a partnership with the charity organization “Mind in Camden” from London, UK.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

The aim of this project is that the members of Belgrade Hearing Voices group, together with a few of us (supporters/volunteers/professionals) is for the participants to improve the existing knowledge and get new perspectives in this approach and to continue to educate new "experts by experience" and medical staff in order to widen the application of this alternative approach in Serbian psychiatry. Main activity was the training in advanced group facilitation in London, organized by “Mind in Camden”. During our visit, we had an opportunity to gain new knowledge and skills that will improve the work of the "Hearing Voices" group in Belgrade, as well as support the development of education programs we plan to continue organizing. In addition, we were lucky to exchange experiences with colleagues from London active in the field of community mental health, and learn about differences in context, approach, methods and treatment in the field of mental health that are applied in England. A part from the training in London organized by partners “Mind and Camden”, we also visited other organizations active in the field of Community Mental Health, such as “Recovery College”, “Core Arts” and “Portugal Prints”. We would like to thank everyone for this valuable experience.

The second activity was dissemination of gained knowledge through public presentations for experts by experience and medical staff in Psychiatry Clinic, Clinical Center of Belgrade, Special Psychiatric Hospital in Kovin (one of the biggest asylums in a small town in the North of Serbia) and Clinic for psychiatric diseases Dr Laza Lazarevic in Belgrade, informing and empowering more people to take part in the Hearing Voices movement and start applying this practice, and share the story of Serbian Hearing Voices Network and this project through social media and other channels in order to reach more people. 

MORE ABOUT PROSTOR AND HEARING VOICES 

Prostor is the representative of the International Hearing Voices Network in Serbia. Together with citizens associations Dusa and Videa (organizations of psychiatry survivors), Prostor launched the first Hearing Voices self-help group in Serbia and organized a series of trainings and lectures for employees in the mental health system, users of psychiatric services, students and the general public. Prostor is also one of the founders of the Hearing Voices Network of the Western Balkans.

Hearing Voices is an international network that offers and promotes a different approach to working with people who have unusual experiences - who hear voices, have visions, or feel unusual tactile sensations. This approach encourages people with “severe diagnoses”- or labels, to speak freely about their experiences and to overcome the problems they face with the support of the people in their environment.

Groups for people who hear voices ("Hearing voices" groups) belong to self-help groups, with the difference that these are primarily groups for people who hear voices, have visions or other kinds of unusual sensory experiences. Groups focus on the experience that group members bring and one of the basic postulates of this approach is that the mere existence of voices is not a problem, it is a fear, isolation from others, hopelessness and helplessness that are often reactions to the appearance of voices. In their work, groups are focused on the recovery and return of a sense of control over one’s own life.