17–18 November 2026

Every Person Is a Story

Understanding the diversity of hearing voices

Copenhagen, Denmark

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Welcome to the Congress

The World Hearing Voices Congress brings together voice hearers, loved ones, professionals and allies from across the world in a shared space of listening, learning and connection. At the heart of this congress is a simple and powerful idea: every person is a story. Human experiences of voices, visions, paranoia and related phenomena cannot be reduced to categories or diagnoses. To make sense of these experiences, we need to listen to the unique stories behind them.

Welcome to the Congress
Welcome to the Congress

Welcome to the Congress

The World Hearing Voices Congress brings together voice hearers, loved ones, professionals and allies from across the world in a shared space of listening, learning and connection. At the heart of this congress is a simple and powerful idea: every person is a story.

Human experiences of voices, visions, paranoia and related phenomena cannot be reduced to categories or diagnoses. To make sense of these experiences, we need to listen to the unique stories behind them.

The congress invites participants into what can be understood as a living library of human stories. Here, people meet not as labels or cases, but as individuals with lived experience, insight and knowledge. Meaning emerges through dialogue – by engaging with experiences from the perspective of the person who lives them.

The strength of the World Hearing Voices Congress lies in diversity: diversity of age, culture, gender and identity, and diversity in how people understand and respond to their experiences. Through workshops and sessions, this diversity is explored using many approaches, including conversation, storytelling, theatre, art and other relational ways of making sense together.

Rather than fitting people into predefined boxes, the congress creates space for curiosity, respect and shared understanding. By listening to many different stories, we deepen our understanding of the full range of human experience – and of what it means to live with and relate to voices and visions.

Speakers

Compassion Under Pressure?

Kellie Stastny

Kellie Stastny

Kellie is a proud voice hearer whose lived experience sits at the heart of her work. Through her own journey of navigating distress, hearing voices, and recovering from the psychiatric...

Listening to voice-hearing as an embodied, relational human story

Charlie Heriot-Maitland

Charlie Heriot-Maitland

Charlie Heriot-Maitland is a clinical psychologist, trainer, researcher, and author based in Edinburgh, UK. He has worked for many years with people who hear voices in both inpatient and community...

Voices in Verse: A Poetry Workshop for Voice Hearers

Amanda Peery-Wolf

Amanda Peery-Wolf

Amanda is a published and award-winning poet with a degree in poetry from Harvard University. In recent years, she has primarily written about — and alongside — her voices. Amanda...

Every person is a story — but what if voices have stories of their own?

Mick (and his voices)

Mick (and his voices)

Mick (Sem) is a voice hearer and, together with his voices, the author of It’s All in My Head!, which was published in Dutch, English and, in 2024, also in...

Living with Voices: Listening Without Interpretation

Roksana Badruddoja

Roksana Badruddoja

Dr. Roksana Badruddoja is a writer, scholar, and educator whose work explores how people live with voices, silence, grief, and intergenerational trauma over time. She is a Professor of Social...

”Voices through history” Hearing voices is nothing new

Joan Høj Jacobsen

Joan Høj Jacobsen

Joan Høj Jacobsen is a 50 year old, Danish woman from Slagelse in western Zealand, who has been hearing voices since she was 8. After many troubled years, she found...

Triggers – Understanding Your Reactions and Experiences

Michael Cidlik

Michael Cidlik

Michael Cidlik has lived experience of hearing voices, seeing visions, and having other sensory and bodily experiences. He is a former chair of the Danish Hearing Voices Network. He works...

Dancing CHIME: Embodying Our Personal Histories and Life Force

Sille Ramsing

Sille Ramsing

Sille, Bachelor of Psychology and Master of Educational Psychology specializing in aesthetic, existential developmental and becoming processes. Alongside her studies, Sille has been a high-level dancer for many years, teaching...

An Embodied, Sensory Learning Experience

Victoria Claire

Victoria Claire

Victoria is a professional artist specializing in contemporary art and sculpture and has been awarded an honorary doctorate in art for an outstanding contribution to public art from the University...

From “Madness” to Ordinary Peace: Demystifying the Journey into the Heart

Sunshine Grace

Sunshine Grace

Sunshine Grace is a filmmaker, autoethnographic storyteller, educator, and clairaudient medium. After experiencing a three-year spiritual emergency that began unexpectedly during an atheist period in her life, she came to...

The Human Book of Gratitude

Mary Yancy

Mary Yancy

Mary Angela Yancy is Program Development and Research Associate for Voice and Vision, Inc. She received her Master of Social Work degree from Temple University. Mary is passionate about people...

Meeting the Muses

Viktória G Duda

Viktória G Duda

Viktória G Duda, PhD. is a creative writer, hypnotherapist, and consciousness researcher. She started her career as a lawyer until the calling of powerful voices and a series of spiritually...

The Roots of the Hearing Voices Movement

Dirk Cortens & Paul Baker

Dirk Cortens & Paul Baker

Paul Baker is a community mental health worker from the UK; Dirk Corstens works in private practice as a social psychiatrist and psychotherapist. Both are involved in the hearing voices...

A Story That Refused to Break

Jens Tódor Roved

Jens Tódor Roved

The author Jens Tódor Roved is a psychosis survivor, occupational therapist, photographer and family father of two young girls. 

Every Song Has a Story

Kate Crawford

Kate Crawford

I am a voice hearer; I've been hearing voices since I was four years old due to physical and mental abuse from my mum and gran and then sexual abuse...

Supporting Women Who Hear Voices Across the Lifespan

Leah Ida Harris

Leah Ida Harris

Leah Harris, M.A. (she/they) is a mad + disabled psychiatric survivor of Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Jewish heritage, who has written and advocated for over two decades for mad liberation, human...

Remote Detonators: Voice-hearing as an embodied and protective strategy

Charlie Heriot-Maitland

Charlie Heriot-Maitland

Charlie Heriot-Maitland is a clinical psychologist, trainer, researcher, and author based in Edinburgh, UK. He has worked for many years with people who hear voices in both inpatient and community...

Every person is a story

A Library with Human Books

A Library with Human Books

All participants at the congress who have a personal story or a topic relevant to the congress theme that they would like to share with others can make themselves available...

Call for Workshops

Submit your workshop proposal for the Intervoice World Hearing Voices Congress 2026 in Copenhagen. We welcome interactive workshops that honour lived experience and reflect the theme: Every Person Is a Story.

Apply Now

Call for Workshops

Call for Workshops

Every Person Is a Story – Intervoice World Hearing Voices Congress 2026

The Intervoice World Hearing Voices Congress 2026 invites people from around the world to apply to facilitate workshops at the congress in Copenhagen on 18–19 November.

The theme of the congress is Every Person Is a Story.

We understand voices, visions, paranoia and related experiences as deeply personal and meaningful human experiences that cannot be reduced to categories or diagnoses. To create understanding, we need to listen to the unique stories behind people's experiences.

We therefore welcome workshop proposals that reflect this perspective and engage with diversity in lived experience – across culture, age, gender, identity and ways of understanding and responding to voices and visions.

We particularly encourage workshops that are interactive and participatory, and that invite dialogue, shared reflection or creative ways of making sense together. Workshops where participants are actively involved – rather than only listening – fit especially well with the spirit of the congress.

Workshops as "Human Books"

To reflect the theme of the congress, we invite applicants to think of their workshop as a book. When applying, you are welcome to structure your proposal in the following way:

  • A front cover: a photo, your name(s), and the title of the workshop
  • A back cover text: a short description of what the workshop is about and what participants can expect

Accepted workshops will be presented on the congress website and in the programme as illustrated "books", where participants can explore the workshops by turning the book from front to back to read more.

About the Selection Process

Workshop proposals are reviewed by the congress programme committee.

To allow the programme to grow organically and remain diverse, applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. Proposals that clearly fit the congress theme and programme will be accepted as they are received and announced progressively.

Some proposals may be placed in a later consideration pool, allowing us to maintain space in the programme and ensure a balanced and inclusive line-up. Proposals that do not align with the congress theme or values will be declined as soon as possible.

This approach allows us to:

  • Announce strong workshops early
  • Keep space open for emerging voices and perspectives
  • Respond thoughtfully to the diversity of proposals we receive over time

We aim to be transparent and respectful in our communication and recognise that submitting a proposal is a personal and meaningful contribution.

How to Apply

If you have an idea for a workshop that resonates with the theme Every Person Is a Story, we warmly invite you to apply by sending an email to je@psykovision.dk

Venue & Travel

Hafnia-Hallen

Julius Andersens Vej 6, 2450 København SV

The World Hearing Voices Congress 2024 will be held at Hafnia-Hallen, a large sports and event center located just outside the center of Copenhagen. The congress will take place amidst the vibrant leisure and cultural life of the Danes. Side by side with Danes of all ages who gather to engage in sports and subsequently foster community over a cold drink or a cup of coffee in the hall café. Denmark has a unique association life, where Danes across the country come together for a wide range of leisure interests. The association life is largely driven by unpaid volunteers who want to contribute to bringing Danes together in communities based on shared interests. In Hafnia-Hallen, you will get a taste of Danish leisure and association life every time you leave a conference room. If you want to awaken your inner child, there are table tennis tables, foosball, basketball hoops, running tracks, and more scattered around the hall where you can play with conference participants or perhaps with a local you have met in the café.

Get Directions

Getting There

Hafnia-Hallen is located just outside the center of Copenhagen and is easy to reach from wherever you are. Like many Danes, you can choose to bike and cycle from the center of Copenhagen to the hall in 20 minutes. There is a metro station close to the hall, providing quick and easy access to the entire Copenhagen and the airport. If you come by car, there is a free parking lot right by the hall. If you use public transport, Hafnia-Hallen is close to: Metro station: København Syd. Train station: København Syd (Regional train and S-train). You can buy a travel card so you can freely travel around Copenhagen. With a City Pass Small you can travel all over Copenhagen. Buy your City Pass here

Accommodation

Scandic Sydhavnen

€€

~2 km from venue

Located approximately 2 km from the venue, this is typically the closest hotel option.

Book Now →

a&o Copenhagen Sydhavn

~2.3 km from venue

A more affordable hotel & hostel option in the area.

Book Now →

Cabinn Copenhagen

~5 km from venue

Budget-friendly accommodation in Copenhagen.

Book Now →

Tickets and Prices

Secure your spot at the congress

Standard Ticket

Individuals with a normal income

350
  • Full congress access (both days)
  • Lunch (sandwich)
  • Fruit, croissants & cake
  • Free coffee, tea and water

Reduced Ticket

Individuals on social benefits

250
  • Full congress access (both days)
  • Lunch (sandwich)
  • Fruit, croissants & cake
  • Free coffee, tea and water

Congress Dinner

Join us for an evening of great food, networking, and good company on 17 November 2026

43
  • Delicious buffet
  • A glass of wine
  • Entertainment

If you want to register more than 10 participants, send an email to je@psykovision.dk so you can get a group discount.

Intervoice Day 2026

Sign up for Intervoice Day – a day of inspiration, community and voices.

Any Questions?

Contact us for more information about the congress.

Register Attendees

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