part of the diversity of being a human, it is a faculty that is common (3-10% of the population will hear a voice or voices in their lifetime) and significant. Hearing voices is experienced by many people who do not have symptoms that would lead to diagnosis of mental illness. Hearing voices is often related to problems in life history. If hearing voices causes distress, the person who hears the voices can learn strategies to cope with the experience. Coping is often achieved by confronting the past problems that lie behind the experience. Theoretical overview The work of Marius Romme, Sandra Escher and other researchers provides a theoretical framework for the movement. They find that: Not everyone who hears voices becomes a patient. Over a third of 400 voice hearers in the Netherlands they studied had not had any contact with psychiatric services. These people either described themselves as being able to cope with their voices and/or described their voices as life enhancing. Demographic (epidemiological) research provides evidence that there are people who hear voices in the general population (2%-6%) who are not necessarily troubled by them). Only a small minority fulfill the criteria for a psychiatric diagnosis and, of those, only a few seek psychiatric aid indicating that hearing voices in itself is not necessarily a symptom of an illness. Even more (about 8%) have peculiar delusions and do so without being ill. People who cope well with their voices and those who did not, show clear differences in terms of the nature of the relationship they had with their voices. People who live well with their voice experience use different strategies to manage their voices than those voice hearers who are overwhelmed by them. 70% of voice hearers reported that their voices had begun after a severe traumatic or intensely emotional event such as an accident, divorce or bereavement, sexual or physical abuse, love affairs, or pregnancy. Romme and colleagues found that the onset of voice hearing amongst a patient group was preceded by either a traumatic event or an event that activated the memory of an earlier trauma. Specifically, there is a high correlation between voice hearing and abuse. These findings are being substantiated further in on-going studies with voice hearing amongst children. Some people who hear voices have a deep need to construct a personal understanding for their experiences and to talk to others about it