Project Inspire Seminar: Ippolytos Kalofonos, M.D., Ph.D. and Sahastri Hercules

“Veteran Voices & Visions: Adapting the Hearing Voices Approach to the West Los Angeles VA”

Ippolytos Kalofonos, M.D., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor-in-Residence
Department of Anthropology
UCLACollege of Social Sciences

Sahastri Hercules

In-Person Event
Haines Hall 352

For more information, please contact Courtney Nelson at cnelson98@g.ucla.edu.

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Abstract: The Veteran Voices and Visions (VVV) project is an adaptation of the Hearing Voices approachtothe Greater Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Healthcare System that serves 1.4million Veterans.The VVV project uses virtual support groups, co-facilitated by a clinician and a Veteran peerwho is an ?expert-by-experience,? to normalize experiences such as hearing voices and seeingvisions. We are trying to build an evidence-base to get this approach recognized and available foruse across the VA. Thus, VVV includes a research component to 1) study the adaptation of aHearing Voices Facilitator training to the VA and 2) to understand how participating in VVVgroups may help Veterans live with theirvoices and make meaning from their experiences. Ourapproach has involved multidisciplinary collaborations – including perspectives andcontributions from Veterans who hear voices, Veteran peer support specialists, social workers,psychiatrists, psychologists, social researchers, and national Hearing Voices leaders. Groupmembers explore personal understandings and contexts of so-called ?unusual? experiencescommonly diagnosed as psychosis rather than privileging biomedical framings; we alsoencourage and support Veterans in engaging with their experiences as potentially meaningfulrather than only interpreting them as symptoms of an illness to be eliminated. In VVVgroups,Veterans share their stories, coping strategies, and worldviews, and often end up supporting eachother in their ongoing life projects. This presentation will be from a psychiatrist-anthropologistand a Veteran peerfacilitator who have been collaborating together on this project.