Bringing Relationships into Voice Hearing: Introducing a Tripartite Relationship Theory

by Rob Allison, Ruth Lafferty

Overview

This book presents a novel, theoretically informed practical approach to voice hearing, which aims to help readers improve relational harmony, reduce distress related to voice hearing, and improve experiences of supportive approaches.

This book presents a Tripartite Relationship Theory, which conceptualises experiences of voice hearing within voice hearer-voice practitioner (or other supporters) relationships. The first part of this book centres on theoretical aspects of the approach, emphasising voice hearers’ internal relational experiences with voices and their relational experiences with practitioners, set against a backdrop of mental healthcare, as a way of understanding voice hearing experiences. Shaped by this theoretical relational framework, the second part of this book provides readers with a practical application of how to support voice hearers to feel safe during times of distress, how to nurture helpful relationships, how to understand voice hearing experiences in relation to their life story, and how to “talk with” and “mark-make” with voices.

This book will be accessible to voice hearers, practitioners, and supporters. It provides a framework for understanding the felt experience of voice hearing and how to influence positive change and better relationships with self and voices.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032619842
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/30/2025
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Rob Allison, PhD, is an academic and mental health nurse. He has many years of experience working with and learning from people distressed by voices. He developed a tripartite relationship-grounded theory to help understand and support voice hearing experiences.

Ruth Lafferty, MSc, is an academic and hears voices. She uses her lived experience, creative practice, and psychotherapy training to inform her teaching work with voice hearers and practitioners.

Table of Contents

Bringing Voice Hearing Into Relationships: Introducing a Tripartite Approach  Part 1: Preface  1. Introduction: an Overview of Voice Hearing  2. The Bigger Picture: Mental Healthcare ‘treatment’ of Voice Hearing  Part 2: Tripartite Relationship Theory  3. Hearing the ‘personal Bully’: Voice Hearing Experiences  4. Experiences of Supporting People Distressed by Voice Hearing  5. We’re in It Together: Understanding Voices Hearing Through a Tripartite Voice Hearer – Voice – Practitioner Relationship  Part 3: Putting the Tripartite Relationship Theory Into Practice  6. Phases of Voice Hearing and Voice Profiling  7. Mapping: Life and Voices  8. Communicating With Voices: Talking With Voices and Mark-making  9. Nurturing Helpful Relationships  10. Concluding Comments

Editorial Reviews

‘Bringing Relationships into Voice Hearing is an important book which will enlighten and inspire many mental health practitioners, people who hear voices and family members. There is a good balance between theoretical material practical uses of the Tripartite approach and personal reflections and examples of different ways to use the approach. I think it should be in every mental health service Library and available to all practitioners who work with voice hearers.’

Rufus May, PhD, consultant clinical psychologist

‘Bringing Relationships into Voice Hearing is a tour de force, rich in insight, warmth and compassion. Allison and Rafferty's focus on the dynamic tripartite relationships between voice hearers, their voices and practitioners makes an important contribution to the theory and practice of relational approaches to voice hearing that will make a real difference to people's lives. Drawing on lived experience of voice hearing, in-depth empirical research, and the wisdom produced through practical workshops delivered over many years, this book is an inspiration as well as a guide to effecting positive change for people who are distressed by their voices.’

Angela Woods, Professor of Medical Humanities and director of the Institute for Medical Humanities, Durham University

From the Publisher