10th Congress of the Madrid Mental Health Association - AEN (March 12-13, 2015) Closing lecture: Jacqui Dillon (English). Trauma and dissociation: an alternative paradigm for understanding psychological suffering Presenter: Miguel Ángel Martínez Barbero. Clinical Psychologist Jacqui Dillon, president of the Hearing Voices Network in England, was at the 10th AMSM Congress on March 13, 2015: “Beyond labels: constructing meanings.” One of the key figures of the Hearing Voices Movement at an international level, closed the 10th Congress with the lecture “Trauma and dissociation: an alternative paradigm for understanding psychological suffering.” The title of the conference is already a statement of intent, as it speaks of trauma, dissociation and mental suffering, terms that are fortunately being recovered and appearing more and more frequently in professional forums, after a time in which they seemed to be banished from the vocabulary of mental health professionals. Jacqui is a respected activist, writer, international speaker and trainer, specialising in voice hearing, psychosis, trauma, abuse, dissociation, healing and recovery. She has worked within mental health services in different contexts for over 15 years, has lectured throughout the world, and has published numerous articles on these topics. She has both personal and professional experience in these areas, and her approaches represent a new way of understanding mental suffering. She is proud to belong to a group that demands a radical change in the way we understand and respond to experiences currently considered as “mental illnesses”. As she points out in one of her articles with Eleanor Longden and Lucy Johnson, “bad things that happen to you can drive you mad,” something that many people who have experienced them first-hand know very well. There is increasing evidence to suggest that psychosis and other forms of anxiety and distress can be understood as significant responses to trauma and loss. Along these lines, she questions the validity of psychiatric diagnoses, such as “schizophrenia” or “psychosis,” since she considers that they do not help to understand what is happening to the person who experiences them, nor do they help to cope with it. As an alternative, she proposes an approach based on formulation, which could be defined as a shared hypothesis about the person’s difficulties, based on their circumstances, experiences, and the meaning that they have given them. The horizontality of the helping relationship is especially important, as is the promotion of the collective management of psychological suffering, strengthening support among equals, with the role of the professional being that of facilitator. For those of you who were unable to attend our Congress, we leave you with this video, which is a unique opportunity to listen live to one of the key figures of the Hearing Voices Movement, coinciding with the fact that this year, the seventh World Congress of Hearing Voices will be held in Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, on November 6 and 7, 2015 (more information at entrevoces.org).