Hearing voices can be a creative way of thinking about or experiencing other people, situations, or events, as interrelated or overlapping, as if other people are watching you, or with you, in different places or situations, and as if different situation contexts are re-arranging or overlapping. No one finds this strange within the fields of creative writing, fictional writing, drama, psychotherapy, dream analysis, advanced mathematics, national or global historical interpretation, or lateral thinking, and yet it seems strange to anyone who hasn't experienced it or doesn't understand it as a voice hearing experience. The fictional writer E. L. Doctorow, and author of the excellent novel and film Ragtime, had a writing style that used this method of inter-relating historical events of his time with fictional events and narratives, and he used this to integrate a personal, interpersonal, social and human dimension to historical events and happenings.
There are three phases to hearing voices as described by the Romme and Escher model: 1. The startling phase: the initial onset of voices experienced as startling and anxiety-provoking. 2. The phase of organisation: strategies for ignoring, listening to, entering into willing dialogue, or making appointments with voices. 3. The phase of stabilisation, where the voices are accepted as part of ourselves, and are able to become a positive influence upon our lives.
I don't agree that the so-called initial onset of hearing voices, as described in Romme and Escher's startling phase, that this is necessarily startling and anxiety-provoking, because if hearing voices is a human variation like left-handedness or sexual differences, then it might just be social prejudice and discrimination that makes the experiences of it negative or disturbing, along with the negative view of some professionals that we are either hallucinating or lying. We also can't rule out the fact that there might have been a prior existence or process to it, similar to what R. D. Laing described in his first book The Divided Self, and again that this becomes subject to prejudice and negative discrimination - cut off from its creative and learning potential, and stunted from its positive influence, as described in Romme and Escher's stabilisation phase. Laing described this splitting or dividing of the self, as he called it, as both an internal process, and something which is caused or influenced by bad family and social environments.
Experiencing persons, situations, and events, within re-arranging or overlapping narrative or situational contexts, through hearing voices experiences, might come under the area of the organisational phase under the Romme and Escher hearing voices model and approach, because willing dialogue with the voices is often very much a part of it, and it can be part of a stabilisation phase as well. The stabilisation phase may be understood in terms of the content or structure of voice hearing experiences, in context to the personal, interpersonal, and social problems that are related to it, but I think it's much better understood if we also look at the creative and learning process of it, and the Romme and Escher model describes it in terms of a creative process or phases, and that we are perhaps misled if we just focus on the structure and content of the voices.
The initial onset of voices, or the startling phase, is not always startling or negative, unless others respond aggressively or negatively to our experiences of it, and hearing voices are not always an involuntary experience, or brought about by external events out of our control. To assume these causes, is to regard hearing voices as an effect, and not a cause or human variation subject to effects, and it takes away our experiences as both responsible and unique in terms of hearing voices being a human variation like left-handedness. Whilst I agree with the basics of the Romme and Escher model, to simply refer to the Romme and Escher research and methods as an approach or a philosophy, rather than a model, is in some ways misleading, because it abstracts the methods or philosophy from the Hearing Voices Networks or organisations, and doesn't allow challenges or progressions of the pre-existing Romme and Escher model. This is also detrimental to the actual approach or philosophy of Romme and Escher, which is still quite new or in its early phase, and which is supposed to be a very progressive approach, involving discussions, and being inclusive to a wide range of knowledge, research, and experiences.
There's also the Joan of Arc syndrome, where if our hearing voice experiences are in line with present social and cultural myth, dogma, and the established powers of authority, then our experiences will be understood or accepted, but if they're not in conformity with pre-existing myths and explanations, then our experiences will be invalidated, undermined, misunderstood, vilified, or regarded as an illness. Joan of Arc's voice hearing experiences where initially in line with the local oral tradition of rural and illiterate people spreading knowledge, and fulfilling prophesies by means of hearing voices, story-telling, myth-making, and so on, and her voice hearing experiences were initially in conformity to the male authority and powers she made a pact with. When her voices went against those male powers and authorities and their outdated myths, she was then accused of heresy, treason, and demonic influence, and she was executed by a quite evil method of burning her alive.
Whilst it's necessary to have a basic model for a local hearing voices group, in order for it to be easy and accessible, it seems to me that whatever model or approach is presented, that there's a danger it could be used in a manner that's dogmatic or which abstracts its progressive forms and principles, and that this is counter-productive to the actual philosophy of the hearing voices network as an inclusive, progressive, and diverse network of organisations. Joan of Arc is an historical example of discrepancy, negative discrimination and oppression within fundamentalist or dogmatic interpretations, and Joan of Arc's fate is a case which should never be forgotten.
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