Importance of Ensuring Emotional Safety

Abstract

This chapter discusses the importance of creating physical and/or emotional safety within their hearing voices groups. While creating a holding space of safety may seem to be an obvious goal for any group, cultivating a safe space for folks who hear voices, have visions, or experience unusual beliefs is crucial. S. McCarthy-Jones et al. proposed five distinct subtypes of voices to help clients, researchers, and clinicians make sense of and respond to these experiences in a helpful manner: Hypervigilance, Autobiographical Memory, Inner Speech, Epileptic, and Deafferentation. Clients who believe themselves possessed by demons or evil spirits often fall into two categories: those who believe only a priest/preacher can help remove the entities and clients, and those who are open to using talk therapy and medications.