I am interviewing people who hear voices others do not hear (sometimes called auditory-verbal hallucinations) who also speak more than one language, for my dissertation study. I am hoping to speak to 10-15 people, by phone or online, who:

• are over 16 years old, live in the UK and would be comfortable being interviewed in English;

• hear voices in more than one language;

• and/or hear voices in a language which is not their first language;

• and/or hear voices and are a migrant to the UK from a non-English-speaking country;

• have heard voices in the last year & have heard them more than once.

If this describes you, I would like to interview you about the languages you speak and the languages your voices speak, and how your languages affect your relationship with your voices. If you’re not sure whether you fit this description, you’re very welcome to get in touch and we can talk about it - the criteria are designed to describe people whose experiences of voice hearing and of bilingualism or multilingualism are significant to them, who will be able to remember those experiences clearly enough to talk to me about them. But there’s no easy way to describe the whole range of experiences people have in neat bullet points, so the criteria are flexible.

What will happen to the information from the interview?

I will transcribe (write down) the interview and if you would like to, you can then read a copy of the transcript and approve it before I start analysis. Then I will look at the information from all the interviews and try to find common themes or points of difference in people’s experiences which seem particularly important. I will also look at the way the language we both use shapes my understanding of what you tell me. I will write this up for my university dissertation and might also present the research at academic conferences or write it up for publication in an academic journal. Your name won’t appear anywhere in the analysis and I will take care not to publish identifying details.

Who are you?

I’m an MA student in Applied Linguistics and Communication, but I also work in mental health research. When I am working in research, I draw on my own experiences of mental health difficulties, using mental health services on an ongoing basis, and being a participant in research studies. I am multilingual (English is my first language, but I have also lived in France and learned other languages in a classroom environment) but I don’t regularly hear voices myself. 

To take part:

If you are interested in taking part in this study, please email me on rolive06@mail.bbk.ac.uk, or you can fill in the form opposite which will send an email to the same address. You can edit the text in the message box or just send the template version and I will get in touch. You can also contact me on 07506276282, which is turned on 9.30-1, Monday-Friday. I will aim to get back to you within 3 days.

More information about data protection, ethical approval, confidentiality, and supervision of the study are in the full participant information sheet which you can read here. You can also see the consent form which shows exactly what you would be agreeing to if you decide to take part here.

I have also put together a list of sources of support and resources about voice-hearing which you can read here.