09/06/2026
Expressing deep gratitude for the influence of the wisdom of Marius Romme as we learn of his passing last week.
The work of Prof Romme has had a profound impact on people all over the world. He, along with the late Sandra Escher, founded a movement that continues to this day and has changed countless lives.
The gathering of love and compassion for a group of people, into which i would identify, has provided a place of transformation and acceptance of the common human realities that many people experience that for many centuries have been identified as madness in a variety of ways.
The vastness of the impact of the hearing voices movement is difficult to express. Marius stands as a person who truly made emancipation possible. He stood by his values and knowledge as he learned it and is an example to anyone who 'works' in the field of mental health that you simply do not have to crumble and be subservient to ideology that is not based in a person's reality of experience.
The gift of the work of Marius and Sandra, and the many others in the vast community across the world have each contributed, is immeasurable in their intention to value the experiences many of us have in making sense voice hearing experience and changing the relationship we have with an incredibly aspect of our humanity.
The work of Humane Clinic is heavily influenced by the work of Marius Romme and the community that emerged around his pioneering and courageous ideas and ability to learn from voice hearers about their own experiences. I first attended a hearing voices group in the UK in 2002. In 2013, Berny and I began to facilitate a hearing voices group in Christies Beach that continues to this day.
I first heard voices when I was 13 and it was dismissed as meaningless. I heard voices again at the age of 21 when I am homeless and fearful. This experience evolved into psychiatrists and MH nurses using the silly language schizophrenia to obscure the deeply important messages that I was hearing.
18 years after my voices departed, In 2017, I had the opportunity to experience voice hearing again, a voice that was with me as recently as may this year - the voice of a dear friend Paul. The difference now is that I am not fearful to talk to my friends about the experience. The many and varied ideas and emancipatory constructs I have been privileged to learn about, have led to me meaning in the experiences - this is no small part thanks to the work of Marius Romme.
Voice hearing is present in so many different and unique ways. I choose not to reclaim the language of madness for my experiences of voice hearing. Thanks to my learnings of the work of Marius Romme and the hearing voices network at the origin of my meaning making, I am pleased to experience an equally valuable aspect of being human. I am a voice hearer.
With deep gratitude to Marius Romme.
